Thawing the Ice
by DiscordianSamba
Summary: AU. Four years ago, Jazz and Maddie Fenton died in a horrible accident. With Phantom blamed for it, Danny has drifted away from everyone, and eventually disappeared, leaving home. After being asked by his father to find him, Sam becomes determined to try one last time to extend a hand to rescue someone drowning for reasons she can't fully understand.
1. Four Years

AN: And here it is, my next new story! The other new ideas will probably take some time to come to fruition, so this will be the last one for a bit. This is actually a revamp of an older idea that fell through (some of you may recognize the tittle). Although some of the ideas are the same, I think it's changed for the better. This is a shorter chapter, meant just to give us a bit of a glimpse into this world. It's important to know that Sam and Tucker do not know that Danny is Phantom in this world, I didn't have space to put that in the description. 3

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Thawing the Ice

Chapter One: Four Years

It was a cold winter morning as Jack Fenton made his way down the streets of Amity Park. Snow had been falling all day, and most people were tucked away inside of their homes. School and work had been called off alike because of the snow and ice, and smoke could be seen coming from the chimneys that dotted the route the large man was walking.

Not quite so large as he had once been, however. Over the past four years, things had changed and, mostly from the stress of it all, Jack Fenton had lost weight. It had not been the only things he had lost.

Four years.

That's how long ago it was that his wife and daughter had been taken from him. It had happened so suddenly, they were gone in the blink of an eye. It was an accident they said, an accident that had claimed their lives. Maddie and Jasmine Fenton were dead.

He didn't believe it when he first heard the news. It wasn't until he saw their broken and twisted bodies for himself did it finally sink in that they were telling the truth, as awful as it was. An accident, they had said, an accident that had been caused by someone he had grown to despise over the past four years.

Phantom.

He always knew that ghost couldn't be left alone. He and his wife had spent a year trying to catch him and send him back where he came from. If he had never appeared, his wife and daughter would still be here today, and he would not have to be out on this bleak and lifeless day to visit their graves.

He didn't really have anything to tell them today, but it was his tradition. Every morning, he would pay a visit to them, and give them fresh flowers. Even today, with the flower shop closed, and having nothing to give, still the man went to them. Although it was easier now, he had never come to accept their death. He knew he wouldn't until the day he finally got his hands around that ghost boy, and tore him apart until there was nothing left.

He stayed by the graves for several minutes, in the silence, contemplating all of the changes the past four years had brought. Although he himself had changed some after the sudden death of his wife and child, it was not him who had suffered the most because of it.

No, it was the other person they had left behind. His wife's son, his daughter's brother. His own son, Daniel Fenton. Danny, really, is what people called him, Jack included.

Or did, at one point. They didn't talk to each other once more. The Fenton house, once filled with much noise, had gone completely silent. It must have been three years since the two of them had spoken to each other. He had begun to forget what his son's voice even sounded like.

Danny had taken their deaths harder, harder than Jack, even. The man could never understand it, but it always seemed like he was blaming himself for the accident that claimed their lives. Jack knew that the only real person to blame was Phantom, that wretched ghost boy.

If only they had gotten to him sooner, none of this would have happened.

His son wouldn't have gone someplace where Jack could no longer reach him.

It had started as just not talking to him, yes, but after awhile, Danny simply stopped coming home at night. Jack had no idea where he went, and all attempts to find him had failed. His absences grew longer until finally, one night, he packed his bags and left the house.

That was two years ago.

He didn't see his son much anymore. Every so often he spotted him on the streets, and though he tried to make contact with him, the eighteen year old would avoid him, pretending he didn't hear him. It hurt Jack to see him this way, and there was nothing in the world he wanted more than to see his son come away from that place he had gone to.

That place in which no one else could live.

And so, that brought him to the second reason he had decided to leave the house today. He found himself on the doorstep to the Manson household, ringing the doorbell. If he couldn't reach his son, then he would have to try and rely on the only person he thought might still have a chance.

Her mother answered the door, seeming surprised to see him. Once, they didn't get along, but that was before the accident. The Mansons were not so petty or small that they could not see when someone was grieving and they had set aside their own personal distaste for the Fentons to try and lend a helping hand.

The parents to the surviving parent, the child to the surviving child. One had taken it, and the other had drowned.

"Jack!" Pamela Manson stepped aside to let him in. "What brings you out today?" She asked him.

"I wanted to talk to Sam about something, actually, Pam." Jack told her, grateful to be in from the cold. Hazmats were great for protecting him from ectoradation, but not so great from protecting him from the cold.

"I see." The redheaded woman blinked. "Well, she's huddled up in her room right now." She told him. "I think she's reading, but I'm sure she'll let you speak to her. Would you like me to have you brought up some tea?"

"Oh, no thanks, that's fine." He held up a hand. "Thank you for the offer, though." He said, before he headed up to Sam's room. He knocked on the door once. "Sam? It's Mr. Fenton. Do you mind if I have a word with you?"

There was some noise behind the door, before it clicked open and the raven haired girl peered out. She put a small smile on her face as she saw him. "Mr. Fenton. What brings you here?" She asked, stepping aside a bit to let him into her room.

"Well, Sam." Jack began, hoping she would hear him out. "I've come to talk to you about Danny, actually."

"Oh." The smile vanished from her face then. "I see." She didn't look too pleased to hear his name brought up, though they had been very close at one point. Jack knew the two of them had feelings for each before the accident, it was just that neither of them could gather up the guts to confess to the other.

A year after the accident, Sam finally came out and confessed them to Danny. She had seen him drowning, and had tried to extend a hand to save him.

Well, after that, they didn't speak to each other ever again.

"Sam, I know the two of you had that huge fight." Jack started off. "But I still think you're the only person who can reach him now."

"I already tried, Mr. Fenton." Sam said, sounding annoyed. She took a seat back on her bed. She had let her hair grow out over the past few years, and had taken to wearing it in a low ponytail these days. "He didn't want to let me in then." She looked up at him, arching an eyebrow. "He's just gotten worse since then. What makes you think he'll want anything to do with me now? I haven't even seen his face in six months, you know."

"Yes, I know, Sam." Jack heaved a sigh. "I haven't seen him for awhile either." It had been three months, to be exact. It seemed that when Danny wanted to avoid someone, he really seemed to know how to make himself invisible. Jack had tried to track down where he was staying, but found himself once more at a dead end.

"So then why come here, Mr. Fenton?" She asked. "It's not that I don't still like your son, I mean, I do." Sam told him. "It's just that I'm pretty sure he hates me now." She shook her head. "It's been three years now, and I still can't forget the things he said to me. No, I don't think he wants to talk to me."

"Sam, please." Jack told her. "I know he's become the way he is, but I don't think his feelings for you have changed. He's just choosing to ignore them." The man frowned. "If this keeps up for any longer than it has, Sam, I just know that we're going to lose him forever. I don't know what I'm going to do then."

There was an awkward silence in the room then, but Sam broke it, heaving a sigh. She got up off her bed. "I'll try, Mr. Fenton, okay? For old time's sake." She gave him a small smile. "I don't think anything will happen, though."

Jack seemed to be relieved just hearing that. "Thanks, Sam. I knew I could count on you." He patted her on the shoulder. "If you do get in touch with him, you know what my phone number is."

"I'll call you if I even get so much as a word from him." Sam assured him. "You had better get home though, Mr. Fenton. The weatherman is saying that the snow storm is only going to get worse later on today."

Jack nodded, heading out her door. He said a brief farewell to her mother before he headed out the door again, and back out into the snow.

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Another month had passed since then, and Sam couldn't even find Danny, though she had tried. She heaved a sigh, her head resting on her desk. She had spent last night tracking down what she thought had been a lead- but it had only turned out that there was more than one person named Danny Fenton living in Amity Park.

"Rough night?" Tucker asked, glancing down at her. They were in school now, the two teenagers were finishing up their very last year of high school.

"Tell me about it." Sam pushed herself back up. "I spent all night on a wild good chase." She heaved a sigh. "I don't even know why I'm trying so hard, really, Tucker. It's obvious that Danny doesn't want to be found."

If things had been different, Danny would have been with them, here, listening to Mr. Lancer drone on about Oedipus Rex. But he had dropped out of school almost as soon as he was sixteen. Even before that, though, his absences just got longer and longer. He hadn't been to school for two months before he officially dropped out.

"Yeah, I've been looking for him too." Tucker frowned. "Nothing." He shrugged. "I even tried a couple less than legal means of finding him, but he hasn't shown up anywhere." He heaved a sigh. "I even checked the neighboring towns just to be sure he hadn't moved."

Unlike Sam, Tucker had never really given up on his old friend. He seemed to have a better knack for running into him, and tried to engage him in conversation every time their paths happened to cross. Like Sam, he too had offered his friend a hand to keep him from drowning, but had just about as much luck with it as she did.

The bell rang then, shattering their thoughts for a moment. Mr. Lancer paused and told them they would pick the lesson back up next Monday, before dismissing them for the day. Sam picked up her bag. "I'm going to go visit the bookstore." She told Tucker. "My favorite author's new book comes out today, and I need something else to focus on for awhile. All this worrying about Danny is going to give me a headache."

"Yeah, alright Sam." Tucker told her, waving goodbye. "I'll call you if I happen to see him."

Sam nodded, before ducking out of the classroom. Really, she still had no idea what she would say to Danny if she came across him. They hadn't talked for three years after all. That day when she had finally confessed her feelings to him...

And he had shot her down more cruelly than she even thought him to be capable of.

She didn't know where Danny had gone, but it was truly a world in which nobody else seemed to be able to enter. It was like he had put his heart in a box and locked it with a key that couldn't be found, no matter how hard you looked. There were so many what ifs raging in Sam's mind, wondering if one little thing she could have done might have made a difference in the long run.

Maybe this, maybe that. Maybe Danny would have still been here if she had confessed a little sooner. Maybe he would have opened up again if she hadn't been so angry at him after the fight and had stayed with him. Maybe she should have tried a little harder to save him, extended her hand just a little bit farther...

There was no point of thinking about the what ifs, really. She couldn't change the past. And if she could, she would have gone back and made sure that the accident had never happened. She would have saved Jazz and Mrs. Fenton from Phantom.

The ghost's behavior had changed after the accident too. Before it, he seemed to like to play hero, trying to fight off all the ghostly invaders that came into Amity Park. These days, he only seemed to show up if they amused him enough. He had left the ghosts to the two remaining ghost hunters in the area, Jack Fenton, and the mysterious Red Hunter.

She was startled out of her thoughts then, the blare of a truck horn sounding in her ears. She blinked, finding that she was on the ground now, sitting down in the snow. She had been so caught up in her thoughts, she hadn't even noticed that she was about to get plowed over by a truck.

She realized someone must have pulled her out of harm's way, and quickly got to her feet, opening her mouth to thank them. She paused then, noticing that nobody was standing by her. Looking around, she spotted a figure heading off in the other direction, and almost felt her heart skip a beat.

Even if it was from behind, she could always recognize him.

She grabbed her bag, shoving the contents that had tumbled out back in, and chased after him. "Danny, wait!" She called out to him. The man seemed to pause for a moment, but didn't look back at her. "Please, hold on for a second!" She hurried down the sidewalk, avoiding another near collision with a man in a business suit.

She caught up to him though, he hadn't gone far. Pausing to catch her breath for a moment, Sam reached out and took his arm. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and his face was obscured by the hood of his flight jacket, but she knew it was him. "Thank you." She said, looking up at him. "That was you back there, wasn't it?"

There was silence for a moment, and Sam's heart sank. Maybe he wasn't going to say anything to her after all. She was sure it was him who had saved her back there, though. Even if they barely saw each other these days, they were still very close at one point, right? She didn't think Danny had it in him to let one of his friends die.

Finally, he opened his mouth, removing his arm from her hands as he did. "Don't mention it." He told her, his voice flat and monotone. Still, those words lit her heart up. She hadn't heard his voice in so long, it was a small miracle that she had heard him say anything at all. "You should be more careful."

"I'm sorry, I was just thinking." Sam told him, hoping to try and keep the conversation going. Maybe Mr. Fenton was right after all. For someone who came across as so clueless, he did seem to pick up on things a lot of other people missed. "I haven't seen you in ages, Danny. It's been what, seven months?"

"I wasn't counting." He told her, glancing down at her.

Sam paused, unsure of what to say to that. Eventually she reached up and pulled down the hood of his flight jacket. "There! I've always had trouble talking to someone when I couldn't see their face." She said, giving him a smile. Her hand paused on it's way down, and she carefully laid it on his right cheek, just below a gauze eyepatch that concealed his right eye from sight. "Oh, that hasn't healed yet?"

Danny heaved a sigh, almost sounding irritated. "What is it, Sam?" He asked, staring down at her with his good eye. He stepped back from her a bit, pulling the hood back up again. "I don't really want to talk to you."

"Oh come on, Danny!" Sam found herself raising her voice, a bit annoyed at him now. "Can't you see that I've been worried about you?" She asked him, staring up at him. "Even after you said all of those mean things to me and pushed me away like you did, I couldn't help but keep on worrying about you! It's not just me, either. Your father and Tucker are worried about you too!"

Danny's good eye seemed to narrow the moment she mentioned his father, and for a brief second, Sam could have sworn they almost changed color. It was probably just a trick of the light, though. "Oh, my _father _has?" He asked, his voice angry. "I'm sure. Listen, Sam, I meant those things I said to you." He told her, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I would like it if you would leave me alone."

"If you really meant that, then why did you just save my life!?" She snapped at him. "I know it was you, Danny, there was nobody else!" She stepped up to him, and reached out to grab one of his arms, looking up at him. "I don't know why you think you have to force yourself away from all of us, but none of us want that, Danny! We want you here, with us."

"Sam, just," Danny heaved an annoyed sigh, freeing himself of her grip once more. "Look, I'm sorry, alright." He told her, not able to look at her any longer. "I can't, Sam, I can't. It's better if you and Tucker just forget I even existed in the first place. You'll be better off that way."

Without really thinking too hard about, Sam found herself reaching up and smacking her old friend across the face. "If that's the case, then maybe I shouldn't have even bothered pulling you off the ledge that one time!" She yelled at him. "God damnit, Danny, stop being so selfish and go home to your father already! How many times do we have to tell you that it's not your fault until you finally get it!? Jazz and your mother did not die because of you!"

The raven haired boy seemed to have been slightly taken aback by Sam's outburst, one hand reaching up to where she had smacked him across the cheek. Silence hung between the two for a moment, before Danny laughed, shaking his head. "It's not something you could understand, Sam."

It was then that what she had said to him sunk in, and Sam felt disgust at the words she had just spat out. No, she would never regret preventing Danny from taking his own life that day- why had she even said that? "I'm sorry Danny, I-" She stopped herself, realizing that at some point, the raven haired boy had vanished.

"...Danny?"

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Unseen to human eyes, Phantom hung in the air above Sam. His good eye looked down at her, the smallest of smiles on his face, though it was a sad one. No, she would never understand, even if he told her.

Because she didn't know. Nobody knew, not anymore. The only other one who had known the truth about him now laid buried in the ground. But Danny Fenton, Phantom, he would always know.

Danny Fenton was Phantom.

The accident was Phantom's fault.

It was _his _fault.

It wasn't something he could ever forget.


	2. Dangerous People and Dangerous Places

Author's Note: Oh look what I finally decided to update as well! I had actually meant to write this chapter a little while ago, but for some reason I kept thinking of it as a new story, rather than the second chapter of an already published story, so I kept sort of putting it off. But no more, here it is, at long last and after much delay! Since the last update only consisted of a single chapter, I'm just writing this one straight off too, instead of doing a rewrite. No point in rewriting something that's only one chapter long, ahahaha~

As always, Danny Phantom doesn't belong to me!

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Thawing the Ice

Chapter Two: Dangerous People and Dangerous Places

"I _had _him, Tucker." Sam vented her frustration the following day, kicking up a bit of snow as she walked beside him towards Casper High. "He was right in front of me, right there! Talking to me, even!" She said, looking over at her long time friend. "But I let him get away. I turned around for just a second, and he was just _gone_." She heaved a sigh, shoving her hands inside of her coat pockets. "What am I going to tell Mr. Fenton?"

"Don't let it get you down, Sam. Danny's pretty slippery." Tucker told her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "But hey, you saw him, right? So that's a good sign. It at least means that he's alive, doesn't it?" He offered. "I mean, I worry about that sometimes. He's only eighteen, like us, how exactly is he surviving out there? Does he have a job or something, and where does he live, what is he doing to get his food? You know, that kind of thing."

"He looked healthy enough. The right eye still hasn't healed though." Sam told him, placing a hand over her own. It had happened in the same accident that had cost Jazz and Mrs. Fenton their lives. It had been a sudden explosion, one that had occurred while Maddie was trying to hunt Phantom, and Jazz had gone in after to stop her. Danny had apparently been hanging around outside the area, just barely within the blast radius, or at least, that was what he had claimed.

Jazz had always been a huge fan of Phantom, in spite of her parent's views on him. Jack, Sam knew, didn't like Phantom even before the accident.

Now? Now he couldn't even stand the sight of him.

The mere mention of the ghost's name was enough to draw the large man into a rage, and he tore through the streets in the Fenton RV like a crazy man whenever he heard that Phantom had turned up somewhere. If he was hunting him before because it was his job, he was now hunting Phantom because he had a vendetta. At first, Phantom had simply tried to avoid him, and if Sam didn't know any better, she would think that the ghost boy also felt guilty about the accident himself. However, as the years went by, Phantom started to actively fight back. The last time they had fought, Phantom had ended up breaking one of Jack's ribs.

Phantom had seemed to regret it, strangely, after it had happened, as if it was something he hadn't meant to do. He had laid low for awhile after that, not showing up for a few months.

Without Phantom around, ghost activity in Amity Park wasn't as high as it had been. It was almost as if ghosts had been drawn to Phantom, rather than attacking Amity Park on their own free will. Oh, there were some ghosts still around. Johnny 13 and Kitty were spotted quite a bit, and even Ember showed up sometimes, seemingly not very interested in conquering the world through music anymore. There were rumors flying around that she was now dating Phantom, at least they were seen together from time to time, in a rather friendly manner.

The Box Ghost, of course, always showed up, but nobody paid much mind to him. Even the least competent officers of Amity Park's Anti Ghost Police Force could handle him. There was Skulker, still chasing Phantom as he always did, one of the few things that could rouse him out of hiding, in fact. Even without Phantom though, it wasn't like Amity Park was defenseless against ghosts. Since losing his wife and daughter, and all but losing his son, Jack Fenton had become a good deal more competent, to everyone's shock. He had reason to be now. There was the Red Hunter, who hunted ghosts even better than Jack, and was catching up to where Maddie Fenton had been when she died.

"Still?" Tucker frowned, snapping Sam out of her thoughts. "Man, that's taking a long time. What did he do to it, anyways?" He asked her. "Sounds like it's pretty nasty if it still hasn't healed."

"I don't know." Sam said simply, shrugging her shoulders. "I've never seen what's underneath it." She confessed. All she knew was that ever since the accident, Danny had begun to wear a gauze eye patch over his right eye, concealing it from view. He wouldn't get it looked at, either. She felt that he was hiding something from them, though Sam wasn't sure what it could be. "I don't think Mr. Fenton knows about it either."

"Huh." Tucker frowned, looking concerned. "Why don't we go Danny hunting tonight, Sam?" He said suddenly. "I've actually sort of heard a weird rumors, lately." He confessed, hesitantly glancing over at her.

"What kind?" Sam blinked. "And why didn't you mention it earlier?"

"I thought you might not like to hear that some people think they've seen Danny in the Underground." Tucker told her. "Furthermore, some people have sworn that they've seen him hanging around there with Johnny 13 and Kitty, sometimes Ember."

"Seriously?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. "I know Danny's having a falling out with his dad and all, but he's _still _the son of two ghost hunters. I sort of doubt that he's going to be hanging around with ghosts, even ones that don't cause a whole lot of havoc." She rolled her eyes. "The Underground, though? Are you sure he'd hang out there? Because that doesn't seem like Danny."

"I hate to say it Sam, but I don't think we really know Danny all that well anymore." Tucker told her, lips twisting into a frown. "I mean, we haven't even really met him or talked to him recently at all. It's not that unlikely that he's become a different person since then."

"He still saved my life, so he can't be all that different." Sam frowned. "I don't know Tucker, you know The Underground's reputation. It draws in the bad kind of people, you know, the kind of people my parents warn me against speaking to?" She rolled her eyes then. "Okay, so my parents warn me about speaking to just about everyone who isn't rich and popular, but I think you get my drift."

"I know that just as well as you do, Sam, and I'm a little skeptical too, I admit. But you know Dash's father is on the force, right?" He asked her, to which Sam nodded. "He and some other officers were called down there to break up some kind of fight. By the time they arrived there- and you know they don't go to The Underground unless they have a show of force- the fight was already over. Apparently, the two guys fighting pissed someone and his pals off, so they both got beat up, along with their friends."

Sam groaned. "Don't tell me they described one of them as having black hair and an eye patch?"

"They described one of them as having black hair and an eye patch, yeah." Tucker told her. "And the other one as being pale skinned and grungy looking, which matches Johnny 13. And by them... I mean the two guys who beat everyone else up." He grimaced. "Didn't even know Danny knew how to fight."

"He _doesn't!_" Sam said. "At least, I don't think he does. You know just as well as I do Tuck, he was always referred to as 'that wimpy Danny Fenton' during middle school and our freshman year."

"Like I said, I think he's changed, Sam, even if he did save your life." Tucker told her. "I'm not telling you to give up, I think you're doing the right thing- but I just want you to keep on your toes, that's all."

"I'm not going to go to The Underground, Tuck." Sam said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not that stupid. Any place the police don't go until they have riot cops as backup is bad news. How they haven't been brought down is beyond me though."

"_Phantom _hangs out at The Underground. They don't stand a chance against Phantom." Tucker shrugged. "Naturally, the first place that ghosts and humans mingle naturally in Amity Park, and it's in one of the most notorious night clubs in the country. Not really sure how I feel about Amity Park's reputation consisting of being the Most Haunted Place in America, and the location of one of the most notorious night clubs in America."

"I can tell you how my parents feel about that last one." Sam rolled her eyes. "They want the whole place, and the block it's on torn down. I don't think that would exactly resolve things though." She said. "And to think, Amity Park used to be pretty crime free." She paused. "On the other hand, it's not like there's a lot of really violent crimes, at least. No murders, at any rate. Lots of drug sellers and muggings, though, but I don't think anyone's been hurt yet."

"Yeah, well, it's just a matter of time." Tucker frowned. "I hear Dash is thinking about going into the police force like his father. Apparently, his mother had a scare the other month, someone tried to mug her on the way home. The wife of a high ranking police officer, and they tried to mug her. What is this town coming to?" He asked, shaking his head. "It wasn't this bad when Phantom was around more." He said after a moment. "I think he scared a lot of the bad guys away. Now he's hanging around them. I guess the Fentons were right about him."

"Yeah, I guess they were." Sam frowned. "Though I hear he's keeping the really bad people away still. It's hard to say what his deal is." She mused as they headed into the school building. "Maybe we should talk to Dash about those rumors though. You know," she rolled her eyes. "If the King of Casper High can spare a moment to talk to us outcasts."

"Eh, he's kind of mellowed out on all of that lately." Tucker said. "You know, I think he liked Jazz. I hear he was pretty shaken up when she died so suddenly- but then again, everyone sort of was." He admitted.

"Nobody expected Casper High's golden girl to die so easily." Sam commented, unlocking her locker. "I don't think anyone was more shaken than Danny, though. That was probably the start of things." Sam frowned. "I don't get it Tucker. We tried to do everything right- we even found Danny a good therapist to talk to. Miss Spectra was supposed to have some of the highest honors in her field, so why did it end up like this?"

"Sometimes therapy doesn't work for everyone. Maybe she reminded him too much of Jazz." Tucker said, shrugging his shoulders, fetching his books from his locker. "It's really hard to say. I thought we did everything we could too, but I guess we didn't do enough in the end." He frowned. "I'm not going to lie to you Sam, I always kind of thought Danny was drifting away from us even before the accident. Like he didn't have time for us all of a sudden- or for school, that matter. He wasn't exactly the best of students freshman year either."

"That's true, I'd almost forgotten in light of everything else." Sam said, shutting her locker, tucking her books underneath her shoulder. "I don't know Tucker, you don't think he was keeping something from us before that?" She asked him.

"I don't know- maybe." He frowned. "I don't like to think that he was because, hey, we're friends right? Or at least we _were_."

"What could he possibly want to keep from us though?" Sam asked, frowning a little. "If it were something really important, I'm sure he would tell us, right?" She asked him, looking uncertain of it herself.

"I don't know, Sam. Like I said, it was just a thought." Tucker told her. The bell rang then, signaling the students to head to class. "I'll catch you later Sam. Maybe we can track down Dash during lunch break and ask him about the rumors." He said.

"Have fun in your AP classes, Tucker!" Sam told him. Her books in hand, she headed towards her own first period class.

* * *

Finding Dash Baxter as it turned out, was not exactly hard. At lunch break, there was only one place that he would be, and that would be at the A-List table. Sam and Tucker could feel all eyes on them as the two outcasts defied all social norms the students knew, and went right up to it and asked if they could talk with Dash for a few minutes.

"And what could Dash possibly want to talk to you two about?" Paulina said snootily, crinkling her nose. The large burnt of her comment appeared to be directed towards Sam, who let it roll off of her like water. "In case you haven't noticed, this table is for the A-List only. And goth geeks and techno nerds don't exactly make it on the list."

"Yeah, yeah, Paulina, _look _it's important, and it will only take a few minutes." Sam said, rolling her eyes. "I hardly think talking to two social outcasts for a couple of minutes will damage Dash's reputation."

"Hey, speak for yourself Sam, I'm not outcast." Tucker frowned. "I'm plenty popular with the ladies."

"_Right_." Sam said, the sarcasm clear in her voice. "Look Dash, it really is important. Trust me, I wouldn't dream of talking to you unless it was."

Dash raised a brow, standing up, much to the protest of the rest of the table. "No, come on guys, it's cool." He said after a moment. "If it's these two, they're obviously asking about Fenton. I might not like you two," he said, giving them a pointed look, "but I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing this for Jazz." He said.

Ah, so he really did like her- and more than just a small crush, if he was honoring her memory this far down the road, Sam thought. "Great, thanks." She said, motioning with her head towards the back of the cafeteria. "A little privacy, perhaps?" She asked.

"Sure." Dash said, following behind the pair as they secured a spot in the back of the cafeteria. Dash sent off any potential eavesdroppers with a glare, there weren't many at Casper High that would risk gaining the ire of it's unofficial King. "So this is about those rumors about Fenton hanging around The Underground, right?" Dash asked them. "Just to make sure I've got everything straight her."

"Right." Tucker nodded his head. "Did your dad really see him there?"

"Well I don't know if the person he saw was Fenton _exactly."_ Dash began. "But he did describe seeing a teenager with black hair and an eye patch leaving the scene with what was unmistakably Johnny 13 and Kitty." He told them, frowning a little. "According to dad, who asked witnesses about what had happened, two guys inside the club started an argument over a girl they were both trying to hit on, and it got out of control pretty fast. Next thing everyone knew, Guy A and Guy B were fighting it out, and then their friends joined them." Dash explained. "Nobody's really quite sure what happened in the middle of that, but at some point, they think someone splashed Kitty with something, and that got her real pissed off right? So of course, Johnny's her boyfriend, so he got involved in the fight, and the person who might be Fenton got dragged in too. And then, next thing anyone knew, the fight was over."

"So you mean to tell me two guys beat up an entire group of people by themselves?" Sam asked, sounding more than a little skeptical.

"Well, one of them was a ghost." Dash shrugged his shoulders. "That's what they were saying at the club, at any rate." He gave Sam a small look. "What, you're not thinking of going down there after him, are you Manson? Look, I don't care about you at all, but I can't in good conscience let a girl go someplace like that by herself."

"I'm not going to the Underground." Sam said, rolling her eyes. "I just wanted to hear about the rumor from it's source, that's all." She frowned a little, almost hesitating to say it. "Thank you Dash. You've been... helpful."

"There's one more thing, though." Dash said after a moment. "I don't know if it's true or not, but according to what dad heard at the Underground, he said that the black haired kid in question was described by the club goers as 'someone you don't want to mess with'. They told that to a _police officer."_ He said, stressing the words. "Look, if that's really Fenton, and the two of you are looking for him because you think you can help him, I think he might be a bit too far gone."

Sam flinched a little at his words at first, but quickly grew indignant. "Danny's not that kind of person, Dash. He's a good kid."

"Yeah, but that was back when he was like fifteen." Dash told her, shaking his head. "I'm just saying, Manson. People change." He said, before he strode off back towards the A-List table.

* * *

Despite saying it twice, against her better judgement, Sam almost found herself drawn to the place. To be fair, she had the sense not to go inside, and had instead crept up the fire escape of a building across the street from it. It had been apartments, once, before the Underground had opened up. After that, nobody really wanted to live there anymore, and so the building was more or less abandoned. She had brought some night vision binoculars from home, for once enjoying the fact that she was actually filthy stinking rich and could afford quick access to high quality products at any time of the day.

Nobody would notice her up here, right? After all, it was dark, and she was wearing black, decked out in a long sleeved black shirt, a heavy black jacket with a hood, black pants and some hefty black boots. It was a little chilly like this, given that it was winter, but Sam didn't plan on staying here for very long. She wasn't stupid after all.

Well, maybe she was a little stupid, she thought to herself- after all, she was spying on one of the most notorious night clubs. She had made sure to not leave the house without a can of pepper spray, a tazer, and an ecto pistol Mr. Fenton had provided her with a long time ago, in order to defend herself from any wayward ghosts that came her way. She'd used it more than once, to her dismay.

So it wasn't exactly like she was defenseless, at least. She was Sam Manson after all, not some damsel in distress.

Training her binoculars on the club below, Sam fixed them on the entrance. The place certainly looked tough enough, she swore she had never seen a man taller and more buff than the person who served as the bouncer. Zooming in a little, she realized that it was actually a woman, a woman who was in the process of punting someone's ass out of line. She couldn't help but find herself nodding approvingly, at least impressed with the club's policy on gender-based hiring.

"Oh wait, this is no time to think about feminism." Sam frowned, turning her binoculars away from the bouncer, and on to the people in line. She recognized one of them, the spiky haired dude dubbed 'Spike' who used to go to Casper High. He had been in Jazz's grade before the accident had happened, and she had been trying to help him work through his issues with his parents. Seeing him here tonight, Sam couldn't help but wonder if all of that had fallen through when Jazz died. Scanning the crowd, she didn't really note anyone else that called out to her, and wondered if perhaps she could track down Spike later and ask him about Danny, if he was willing to talk to her.

If Danny really was going to the Underground, and Spike was as well, it would have been likely that they would have run into each other. It made sense, she thought.

The Underground itself was rather impressive, and larger than she thought it would be, at least from the outside. It looked like a converted warehouse of some type, that someone had ripped the roof of to turn it into a dome. She didn't exactly understand the club name, perhaps it was just a pun. Apparently even the nastier crowd in Amity Park enjoyed their puns. She couldn't tell much of what the layout was like from the outside, windows shaded so that nobody could see through them, and she could only see a sliver through the open doors.

Sniffing a little, she tugged her hood over her head to block out the chill wind some more, and focused on scouting the place out again. Looking through her binoculars, she spotted a nervous looking younger man by himself, and Sam chuckled, wondering if he was a first timer or an undercover police officer of some sorts. Obviously, whoever he was, he was having a hard time keeping his cool underneath the fierce glower of the bouncer, who, after a few moments of thought, turned the man away.

"If they're going to send in undercover cops," a young man's voice spoke up next to her, giving Sam a start. "...they should probably send ones with better nerves."

Sam bit back a yelp, one hand racing inside her pocket for her tazer, clutching it as she turned around to get a good look at the person who had sneaked up on her- she hadn't even heard anyone coming! She quickly, of course, realized _why _she didn't notice it when said person turned visible right in front of her, giving off a faint ghostly glow in the dark night. A brief look of shock came across his face when he saw Sam's face, before it settled into an expression of mild amusement.

"But I don't think you're an undercover police officer at all. You barely look older than your teens." He said, smirking.

"Fancy thing for you to say, Phantom." Sam said, letting go of her tazer, and instead, reaching for the ecto pistol hidden inside of her jacket. She yanked it out and pointed it towards him, finger dancing over the trigger. "Don't come any closer to me."

Phantom's expression became unreadable once the weapon was drawn, eyes shadowed by his white hair. Or just the one, rather, he wore bandages that covered his left eye from view. She took note of this, recalling Danny's eye patch- but no, that was over his right eye, not his left, and Phantom surely had nothing to do with Danny. After all, Phantom was a ghost, and Danny was alive.

"Do you really think that puny thing's going to be much good against me?" Phantom asked, crossing his arms in front of him. Now that she had seen him in person for the first time in awhile, she noticed that he had appeared to have gotten older, now around her age. He still wore mostly black, but had ditched the hazmat somewhere, exchanging it for a tight black shirt and a pair of dark gray cargo pants. He wore white fingerless gloves and a pair of white combat boots, which looked more than a little scuffed up. Some small part of her found itself approving. "I thought you were a little smarter than that, Sam."

Sam glared at him suspiciously, getting to her feet. Hiding wasn't doing much good now that Phantom was here, out in the open, and she thought it would be safer overall for her to be standing and ready to run if she needed to. "Better safe than sorry. How do you know my name?" Sam asked, sounding suspicious.

"Overheard it. Not many goths in Amity Park, you aren't exactly hard to remember." Phantom told her. "What brings you out here in the cold?" He asked her, taking note of the binoculars hanging around her neck. "Is your hobby spying on dangerous places now?" He asked her. "Seems pretty risky thing to do for someone as attractive as you."

"Are you hitting on me, Phantom?" Sam asked, quirking an eyebrow. "I thought you were dating Ember."

"Sometimes." Phantom shrugged his shoulders. "It's all very casual." He told her, and a blush rose to Sam's cheek as she understood what he was implying. That caused Phantom to smirk, amused by this turn of events. Vanishing from her sight, he appeared behind her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, placing one hand over the muzzled of the ecto pistol. "Oh, I see. Saving your first time for someone special?" He asked her.

"Shut up!" Sam hissed, now bright red. "What's wrong with that? And get off me!" She said, breaking free from his grip and turning around, training the pistol on him once more. "I'm not interested in you, if that's what you're asking, Phantom." She said, her voice low.

"Well, that's fine." Phantom shrugged his shoulders, unbothered by this. "That's your choice after all." He said. "So what exactly is your interest in the Underground then, Sam?" He asked her, sounding genuinely curious. "You don't seem like the type to want to hang out at a place like this."

"Hah, other people would say otherwise." Sam couldn't help but laugh. It was nice, actually, to have someone not assume she was interested in these sorts of things just because she was goth, even if that person was Phantom. "But for your information, I'm looking for someone. I don't suppose you've seen a teenager around my age with black hair and an eye patch?" She asked, glancing at the bandages around Phantom's eye. "Around the other eye though."

"You're talking about Danny Fenton, aren't you?" Phantom asked, seeming amused at the shocked expression that crossed her face. "What, are you more surprised that I know him or that he comes here? We do hang out with the same set of friends, after all."

"_I'm_ Danny's friend." Sam said lowly, not liking the way he said that. "Or at least I _was_." She frowned a little, finally lowering the ecto pistol a bit.

"You shouldn't worry about him so much. He's fine, he'll live." Phantom waved a hand. "People drift apart, that's normal."

"Yeah well, I don't like the idea of him hanging around in a place like this." Sam told him, eyes narrowing. "And Danny drifting apart from everyone isn't normal, there are circumstances behind it. You, of all people, Phantom, should know." She said, glowering at him.

"Ah yes, that's right." Phantom said, his face once again wearing that unreadable expression. "The accident with the Fenton's, right? I get it. Do you also blame me?" He asked her.

Sam was a little taken aback by the question, not expecting to be asked it up front. "Well," she frowned, eyebrows furrowing in thought. "A little. I don't exactly know all of the circumstances behind it, though." She admitted. "Are you to blame?" She asked, returning the direct question.

Phantom flashed a quick grin, nodding his head. "See, that's what I like about you Sam. You're nice and direct." He told her, but something in his tone suggested that she wasn't getting a nice and direct answer back. "So you came to this club looking for the wayward Danny Fenton, huh? I don't think he's going to show up tonight, though, so you should probably head home."

"And how would you know that?" Sam asked, arching an eyebrow, clearly skeptical of this claim.

"We're friends, you could say." Phantom told her. "Yes, yes, I know, he's the child of two ghost hunters, so you're wondering what exactly he's doing hanging around with ghosts. As it turns out, we've got a lot in common." He told her, a brief chilling smile crossing his lips, before it vanished.

"I'm not leaving until I'm good and ready, Phantom." Sam told him, glaring him down. Ghost or no ghost, she wasn't about to let him intimidate her.

"In that case, why don't you come inside with me?" Phantom asked, vanishing from his spot again, and reappearing to scoop Sam up into his arms. "You'll freeze to death out here at this rate. You'll be safe, as long as you're with me." He assured her.

Sam didn't know if it was the ghost's cold touch, or something in his frozen gaze, or both that caused her to shiver violently, but she did. She shoved her hands against her chest, breaking free of his grip once more, though she landed rather unceremoniously on her rear end. Grunting a little, she stood back up, shooting him a glare. "I don't think so, Phantom." She told him. "Fine. If you're so intent on making sure that I don't see Danny, then I'll leave for today. But I will find him, you know. I need to, not just for my own sake, or the sake of his father, who is worried sick about him, but also for Danny's sake."

"Danny doesn't need any help." Phantom told her. "He's doing just fine on his own."

"Yeah, well, I'll be the judge of that." Sam said, narrowing her eyes. "Pardon me if I don't trust the words of Amity Park's most infamous ghost."

"Nobody does." Phantom simply shrugged his shoulders, expression unreadable once more. "But very well, Sam, I've no intention of keeping you here against your will. But keep in mind, my offer still stands. There's no one down there foolish enough to cross me." He told her, smirking a little. "After all, as you said yourself, I'm Amity Park's most infamous ghost- what chance does anyone else stand against me?" He asked her.

Sam's eyes narrowed at that comment, but she shoved her ecto pistol back into her jacket, and headed back down the fire escape. She was a bit startled to realize that Johnny 13 had been waiting down there, leaning against his bike. He gave her a quick grin, waving a hand at her. Sam gave him a glare, intending to stomp past him, before she paused, and turned back towards the grungy looking biker.

"Are you _really _friends with Danny Fenton?" She asked him, violet eyes narrowed.

The biker shrugged his shoulders. "You could say that, sweetcheeks." Johnny told her. "Didn't Phantom tell you as much? But don't worry though, we're taking good care of him." He cracked a smile. "It's not like he's doing pot or drugs or anything if that's what you're worried about. He's hanging out with ghosts after all, that stuff does nothing for us." He waved a hand.

_"Why?" _Sam asked him.

"You'd have to ask him yourself, provided you can track him down." Johnny told her, the amused smirk on his face telling her that he thought she had no chance of that happening.

Sam shot him another dirty look, before she forced the hood of her jacket back up, shoving her hands back inside of her pockets and took off down the back alley, to avoid attracting attention to herself. In her mission to find Danny, this had been equal parts informative and a bust. She had learned things, things she now wished she didn't know, but she still hadn't accomplished her goal, which was to actually _find _the damn boy.

Tucker was right.

Danny was slippery.

* * *

"Sam, wait. Please tell me you didn't say what I thought you just said." Tucker said, putting a hand to his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. "I thought you said you weren't going anywhere near the Underground?" He asked her, eyes narrowing. "You told me and Dash that. What if something had gone wrong?"

"It was fine Tucker." Sam assured him. "I brought a tazer and some mace, so it wasn't exactly like I was unarmed." She told him.

"Yeah, but some of those guys have _guns _Sam. And some really scary looking knives!" Tucker added quickly. The two were sitting inside Tucker's room the very next morning, Sam had invited herself over to Tucker's house. Although he was more than happy to see her at first, somehow, Tucker got the impression that he wasn't going to like what Sam was going to tell him from the expression on her face. And boy, was he ever right about that.

"Not to mention you met Phantom, Sam. _Phantom_!" Tucker exclaimed, the only force that made him keep himself from outright yelling was the fact that he didn't want his parents to overhear this and get the wrong idea. "He might have been praised by some people as a hero once, but that was a long time ago now. Not to mention Johnny 13 was there too. You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"I'm alive, aren't I?" Sam told him, heaving a sigh. "Look Tucker, I know, you're right, it was a stupid thing to do. But I couldn't not at least try to investigate the place. And I didn't actually go into the club." She pointed out. "I just observed it from a distance. And it's not like I had planned to go there when I told that to you and Dash either, it just sort of ended up that way."

Tucker heaved a sigh, flopping back down on his bed, spreading himself out over it. "Just promise me that you won't do that again Sam. Seriously, promise me. You got lucky this time Sam, but you don't know if it will happen again, and you shouldn't count on it happening again." He told her, lifting his head to look at her.

"I promise." Sam told him, and Tucker made himself take some comfort in that, dropping his head back down on the bed.

"So Danny really is hanging around ghosts huh? And with _Phantom _at that." Tucker asked, eyes transfixed on the ceiling. "I don't believe it. Are you going to tell this to Mr. Fenton?" He asked her.

Sam let out a strangled laugh. "Are you joking? Of course I'm not going to tell that to Mr. Fenton. Do you think I want to give the man a heart attack? There's no way he'd take that news well. He would probably think Phantom's using him or something, and I don't even want to think about what would happen to Amity Park if Jack Fenton thought that was true. He'd tear the place apart looking for Phantom, probably _literally_."

"Do you think Phantom's using him though?" Tucker asked. "Also, so the rumors about him and Ember were true, huh? Mikey now owes me twenty bucks."

"I don't know, Tucker." Sam said, frowning deeply. "I don't understand what it would be that Phantom would want out of Danny. If he was still living with his father, sure, maybe he would use him to learn things about Fenton tech, but he's not there anymore, so that would be futile." She said. "As much as I don't like the idea of Danny hanging out with them on his own free will, especially when one of them might have caused the accident that killed his mother and older sister, but I don't really see any other explanation for it."

"True." Tucker frowned. "So, what kind of impression did you get from Phantom? Do you think he was really behind the explosion?" He asked her.

"I don't know." Sam admitted. "He's a hard one to peg, that guy. He was making passes at me at first, did you know that? But on the other hand he dropped it immediately after I told him I wasn't interested." She rolled her eyes. "Like I want to have anything to do with a ghost." She let out a bitter laugh, shaking her head. "But other times he gave me this really cold feeling, and other times I just couldn't read him at all. It's more than a little confusing. Normally I'm pretty good at reading people."

"As for the accident, I don't know. I asked him, but he didn't answer me." She told him. "He avoided the subject altogether. And that was one of those times I couldn't read him again." She said. "So I couldn't tell you."

"Huh." Tucker frowned. "Well, I don't think you should involved yourself with him anymore." Tucker said, propping himself back up again. "You're not going to take him up on his offer, right?" He asked her, giving her a look that said she had better say no.

"I don't plan to, relax, Tucker." Sam lifted her hands. "I'm not going back to the Underground, cross my heart and all of that. Once was enough, I think, and I hate to admit it, but you're probably right- I _did _get lucky."

"Well okay, that makes me feel a little better." Tucker said. "I was going to tell your parents about if you said otherwise, to be honest." He admitted to her. "Don't give me that look Sam, I was only thinking about your safety. I know you're tough and strong, and that you can more than handle any of the boys at Casper High, trust me, I know that well. But these aren't exactly high school students with over inflated egos. They're armed men with overly inflated egos." He told her.

"I know Tucker, and it was a bad choice on my part, I admit that. Now can you maybe stop bringing it up?" Sam asked him, crossing her arms and giving him a look. "It's not like we have any other leads."

"Sure we do." Tucker grinned. "You know Miss Spectra keeps all of her records on electronic file?" He asked her, holding up his PDA, a mischievous grin on his face. "Well, guess what Tucker Foley is now the proud owner of."

Sam stared at him, blank faced. "You... hacked into the school records." She said blankly. "And you're lecturing me about doing dangerous things?"

"Except that there is no way this scenario ends with my death." Tucker pointed out. "Besides, it's for a good cause. I thought we might find something in here that would tell us something about what caused Danny so much stress. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty good at this sort of stuff. I don't mean to brag, but there's no way anyone noticed that I was poking around in the school files."

"Yeah, not that Spectra did much good with him though." Sam rolled her eyes. "I swore he got worse after speaking with her." She said. "That was probably a mistake we shouldn't have made, now that I think about it. After all, it was only after that he, you know..." She hesitated, looking down at the floor.

Tucker's own expression turned grim in response, knowing exactly what she was talking about. "I know Sam, and it's not your fault, either. You saved him, remember?" He told her. "So don't go blaming yourself for it."

Sam sighed, shoulder slumping. "I know, Tucker, it's just... it's hard to get over that. I didn't think that Danny would ever be the type to attempt to take his own life." She told him. "I didn't even understand half of what I was saying to him at the time, I completely blanked out during my whole speech. Whatever I said must have worked though." She confessed. "I think that was around when he decided to stop going to see Miss Spectra, though."

"I understand what you mean, Sam. I don't know if I would have been half as effective even with all of my wits about me if it had been me up there with him, instead of you." Tucker told her. "But Spectra's notes could still be of some use to us, I figured. What's the harm in looking at them anyways? It's an avenue that we haven't tried, and it's considerably safer than trying to sneak into the Underground or talking with Phantom or Johnny 13."

"It's true, I guess. It just feels illegal." Sam said, then rolled her eyes. "I mean, of course it's illegal, but... you get what I mean, right?" She asked him.

"I understand, don't worry about it." Tucker told her, getting up from his bed, fetching his laptop. They were going to need a bigger screen for this, he thought. Grabbing the computer, he went back to his bed, setting it down in his lap and booted it up. Sam joined him, sitting next to him, watching him as he waited for it to start up. Once it had booted up all the way, he connected it to his PDA, and grinned at Sam.

"Well, here goes nothing." He told her, opening up a copied folder filled with Penelope Spectra's files. "Did you know she has a file that's literally filled with nothing but pictures of herself in a bikini?" Tucker asked Sam. "It's true! For a woman in her thirties, she's pretty smoking, I've got to say."

"_Focus_, Tucker." Sam said, rolling her eyes.

"_Danny _would have appreciated the bikini folder." Tucker said glumly. "I'm saving it though." He grinned.

"Just find Danny's file." Sam told him, flicking him lightly on the forehead. "You pervert."

"And proud of it too!" Tucker boasted, laughing a little as he brought up the file with Danny's name on it. It brought up a selection of word files, each of them labeled with Danny's name and then a date next to it. There was one file that came before the others, and that was back when Spectra was having introductory sessions with 'troubled' members of the student body, before Danny had been sent to her for frequent sessions. It was dated just a little bit before Maddie and Jazz's deaths, and Tucker frowned.

"Huh. I'd almost forgotten the school had already considered Danny troubled by then." Tucker said, clicking on the file first. And then found himself groaning. "It's in _code, _are you fucking _kidding _me?!" He uncharacteristically swore. "What the hell kind of therapists puts their patient's files in _code?"_ He asked Sam, closing the file in frustration, and opening the others. All of them got him the same result, the same strange mixed up combination of letters and phrases.

"That is a little strange." Sam admitted. "Are all of the files in code?" She asked him.

"I don't know, I wasn't planning on checking any files other than Danny's." Tucker admitted. Frowning, he clicked the back button, and went back to the main index. Selecting a random student, he opened up the text document that was there, and found that the file was in perfectly understandable English.

"Seriously?" Tucker frowned, closing out of it, and selecting several more student's files. Each of them gave him the same result, none of them were in code. It was just Danny's files, it seemed. "Why the hell would she only have Danny's files written in code?"

"Maybe it's just corrupted?" Sam suggested. Computers weren't exactly her area of expertise, but that was a thing that could happen, right?

"No, no, that's code." Tucker told her. "I know code when I see it, trust me." He frowned, returning to Danny's file, and looking over a random text document again. "Now that you mention it, Spectra's files had higher security than anything else on the school server- even the grades were easier to get into."

"Tucker, you didn't also change your grades while you were in the system, did you?" Sam asked him, shooting him a look.

"Please, like I even need to anymore." Tucker rolled his eyes. "I didn't Sam, I swear."

"Alright, I believe you." Sam told him, frowning, crossing a leg over the other, staring at the computer screen in thought. "So is there something about Danny that caused Spectra to tighten the security around her files and then write them in code? But what could that even be? I mean, it's not like we can just ask her or anything." Sam said, laughing a little. "'Hey there Miss Spectra, we hacked into your records and were wondering why you only had Danny's file written out in code! Oh what's that, you're calling the police, oh that's fine, are they the ones with the answer'?"

"I would not do well in prison." Tucker said. "The good news is though, that I think I can break it."

"Really?" Sam asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Since when did you get so good at codes?" She asked.

"I've always been good with codes, you've just never asked about it." Tucker shrugged his shoulders. "I've got secrets too, you know."

"You're sure you can break it though?" Sam asked him. "How long do you think it will take?" She asked. "Because the sooner we get answers, the better."

"Probably a few days, give or take." Tucker said. "It looks pretty complex, but once you find the key to the code, everything becomes much simpler." He told her. "I'll let you know first thing when I do though, and I'll construct a program at the same time to translate the code automatically so that we don't have to do it ourselves." He said. "Because _that _would take forever."

"Well, I'll leave you to it, Tucker." Sam said, getting up off of his bed. "I'm going to see if I can track down Spike. I saw him hanging around outside of the club last night. You remember Spike, that guy Jazz was trying to help?" She asked him. "And don't worry, I'll make sure I'm in a safe place when I talk to him, since you seem to be so worried about me."

"Yeah well, I am." Tucker huffed. "So what? Is it so wrong for friends to be worried about friends? We've pretty much already lost Danny, at least metaphorically, I'd hate to lose you too, Sam."

"No, I understand." Sam said, giving him a gentle smile. "I'll catch you later Tucker. Good luck with the code."

"Good luck with Spike!" Tucker called after her, and set his laptop aside, getting up to grab a pen and some paper. "Now then," he grinned, "...let's see what secrets little Miss Spectra is trying to hide."


	3. Everyone Carries Scars

Author's Note: At long last, the third chapter! Many fun things abound here, and this is another one I'm pretty happy with! Which is a good thing, really. I guess next up is _White and Black_, and then I will either debut the first chapter of _Spectral Revolution_, or perhaps I will first tinker with updating something else beforehand. I will have to see!

Thanks as always for reading, you guys are great! For those of you reviewing, you guys are pretty awesome too! As always, Danny Phantom does not belong to me.

* * *

Thawing the Ice

Chapter Three: Everyone Carries Scars

Even when he was still attending Casper High, Sam didn't know Spike very well. That would surprise some people, who assumed that all of the social outcasts hung together in the same group- but this would be an incorrect assumption. She was a goth, and he was more of a punk, though everyone around her usually seemed to get the two confused. Aside from the fact that Jazz used to work with him, and that apparently he had been having some issues with his folks at the time of her death, she knew next to nothing about him. She didn't know where he lived, who he hung out with, or where he hung out- other than The Underground, apparently, and she wasn't about to go back there if she could help it.

She _had _promised Tucker that should would stay away from it, but the thought of going back there was still present, lingering in the back of her mind as a last resort.

As it turned out, Spike was much easier to track down than Danny was. There was something about a guy with spiked hair and nose piercings that made him easier to find than a black haired, blue eyed teenager, even when he was wearing an eye patch.

When she finally tracked Spike down, two days later, he was hanging around his friends inside a rather unsavory looking barbeque place- the kind of place she would have never entered on her own free will otherwise. Sam wasn't entirely sure if it was just her distaste for meat that was coloring the place, or the fact that it looked like they hadn't changed their decor at all since the 1970s, which the restaurant proudly stated it had been open since. Either way, she found herself crinkling her nose in disgust a little as she weaved her way through the patrons of the restaurant- far too many for a place such as this, she couldn't help but think, and made her way to Spike's table.

"You're Spike, right?" Sam asked, looking down at the pale, spiky haired boy. She already knew the answer to that question of course, but it would serve as a conversation opener.

Spike gave her a look, quirking an eyebrow as this unknown goth girl began speaking to him. He didn't recognize her, and she wasn't the least bit surprised. "Who's asking?"

"Sam Manson." She introduced herself. "I was friends with Jazz Fenton's little brother, Danny." She told him, using the one small connection they had with each other. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed something odd- did the other people at the table flinch at the mention of his name? Perhaps it was simply her imagination.

"Oh right, the redheaded girl." Spike nodded his head. "Shame about her. Okay then, Sam- can I help you with something? This isn't exactly a place for high school girls to be hanging around, you know. Most of the customers here aren't decent folks like me."

"You can, actually." Sam nodded her head, brushing aside the comment. She could handle herself perfectly well, thank you very much. "I'm looking for the aforementioned little brother. It's come to my attention that you might be hanging around a place where he's supposedly been seen hanging around himself. I thought you might know something."

"About the Fenton kid?" Spike arched an eyebrow, but Sam noticed that he had grown a bit paler. It wasn't just him either, but the other people at his table had suddenly gone quiet, and likewise had all become very pale. Had she really asked something that bad? Exactly _what _was Danny involved in? Or were they just afraid of his name being mentioned because they knew he was friends with the likes of Phantom and Johnny 13?

"Yeah, about Danny." Sam repeated again, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow, trying to give off the impression that she wouldn't be taking no for an answer. "You know anything? Seems kind of like you do."

"No, I don't know nothing about him." Spike said, trying to keep his voice steady, better at covering it up than his friends. "I've maybe seen him once or twice there, but it's not like I've ever talked to him or anything. I don't know who he hangs out with either, I don't really pay attention to him much."

"You're lying." Sam observed. "Come on Spike, his father is worried about him. The least you can do is be honest with me. I'm worried about him too, you know. I'm sure Jazz would feel the same if she were still around. You'd help her if she was the one asking, wouldn't you?"

Spike grimaced, eyes darting to the floor, tearing themselves away from Sam's unwavering gaze. It was as if he was unable to face it, and Sam would have found the idea of the older teen flinching away from a younger girl humorous if the current situation was not quite serious to her. "Look, I'll tell you what I know alright, but you didn't hear it from me, or from any of my pals." He said. "Got that?"

"Fair enough." Sam said, nodding her head. She still didn't understand why they seemed so afraid of Danny- or was it the people that he associated with, rather than him? She couldn't imagine Danny hurting other people, no matter what she had heard. Well, she supposed his ensuing words would clear up matters somewhat. "Go on."

"He keeps some pretty bad company." Spike said nervously, eyes darting around the restaurant as if to ensure that none of the 'bad company' in question was there. Sam couldn't help but find herself look around as well. "He hangs out with you know, the ghosts. Johnny and Kitty and Ember, all those folks. The kind of people a normal guy usually wouldn't want to mess with."

"Not Phantom?" Sam inclined her eyebrow.

"I hear they're buddies too, but I've never actually _seen _Danny with him." Spike told her, shaking his head. "Then again, I try to stay out of Phantom's way. Don't want to mess with that, you know?" To that, his buddies nodded in agreement.

"I don't suppose you have any idea where Danny hangs out other than The Underground?" Sam asked. "Preferably some place I'm not likely to get dragged out into a back alley and murdered would be nice." She told him.

"Not really, no." Spike shook his head.

"I thought I saw him heading into the warehouse district once." One of his friends hesitantly spoke up, clearly not sure if he should be telling her this. "I'm not really one hundred percent sure it was him though. I didn't really see where he was going."

"Why would he be in the warehouse district?" Sam asked, quirking an eyebrow. Another thing to add to her list of things that didn't make any sense. It was already quite the list, she thought.

"Someone converted some empty warehouses in that area into apartments awhile back." Spike told her, shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe he lives there? I don't hear it's the most lawful of places though, mind you." He offered. "I don't really know, I can't say for sure. But what I can tell you is that I don't really think he's going to be all that keen on coming back home- from what I understand, he has a few issues with his father. Doesn't seem to like him." He shook his head.

"I'm well aware." Sam frowned. "But I don't think it's something that they can't work through if they just sit down and talk to each other. Danny hasn't exactly been doing a whole lot of that lately, at least not with us." She frowned, crossing her arms in front of her, clearly looking a bit annoyed. "I don't get it. We're his friends, so if something is bothering him so badly that he feels he needs to leave home, why doesn't he just come talk to one of us, instead of making new friends with _ghosts _of all people?"

"I can't answer that." Spike shook his head. "Not my area of expertise. Have you tried talking to like, the school psychiatrist or something?"

"Yeah, we did, that didn't go over very well." Sam rolled her eyes. That was an understatement, of course. Mentioning Spectra brought to mind the coded files she kept on Danny, and she wondered how well Tucker was progressing with breaking the code. She hoped it was going well, she wanted to get all the information she possibly could before making her next move.

"Ah." Spike said simply. "Well, aside from that, I don't think I've seen Danny anywhere other than the club. Sorry, the guy's as slippery as some of the ghosts he hangs around. Scary as one of them too, to be honest."

"I guessed as much." Sam frowned a little, visibly annoyed. "Well, thanks for your help at any rate. Trust me, Danny won't hear a word about who I got any of this information from him."

"If you manage to find him." One of Spike's friends piped up, an action which received a glower from Sam, one that caused him to flinch.

"Oh, I'll find him." Sam said, giving the older boy a long look. "You best believe that I will."

* * *

"She's really serious about looking for you, ya know?"

That got the ghost biker a blank stare, although Johnny had very little doubt that his friend knew what he meant. It was a bit funny really, calling him his friend. In the first year that they'd known each other, Danny Fenton- none in other circles as Phantom- had spent most of his time hunting him. They were never exactly serious enemies- but one couldn't even really say there were allies.

And now, here they were.

Frankly, it had started up in an effort to keep the kid of the deep end. Someone with all that power? That wasn't the kind of guy that you wanted to go and have lose his mind. It probably wouldn't end well for the ghosts, never mind the humans. Of course, over time, he'd begun to like the little bastard, as if he'd grown on him. Even if Kitty did sometimes fuss over him too much for his own tastes. Any new wounds on the kid always brought out some kind of maternal side in her, one that he had never known she had.

Sometimes it got him thinking what their lives would have been like if they'd survived that motorcycle accident.

"Come on kid, you know what I mean." Johnny told him, looking rather cross now. "Before you know it she's going to wind up head over heels in some dangerous business, and then that'll be the end of it."

"Sam's smarter than that." Danny noted, not looking up from his computer, skimming over something that Johnny couldn't even begin to read. Was that Latin? Hell if he knew.

"I know her type, Danny. She's the type whose stubbornness and determination often override her common sense." Johnny observed. "Come on, don't lie to me, you can't begin to tell me that you're not worried about her. Isn't that why you approached her last night? To scare her away from the club?"

Danny heaved a sigh, finally shutting his laptop, glowering at the ghost. "Look." He said, his tone sharp. "I don't need you telling me what to do, okay? I'll deal with Sam my way, I don't want you poking around in my business anymore than you have to, Johnny. We're friends, but we aren't that close."

"Cold." Johnny said, quirking a brow. "But that's pretty much standard issue behavior for you these days, isn't it? You know I had hoped you would start opening up to people more eventually. That accident you keep holding over your head wasn't your fault, you know." He said, and as soon as the sentence was out of his mouth, he knew that he had stepped on a landmine.

There it was, the blazing green color of his good left eye, as Danny sharply got to his feet. "I told you not to talk about that." He snapped. "I don't want to hear anything about the accident."

"You let the girl talk about it." Johnny said slowly, holding up his hands.

"Sam's different." Danny snapped.

"Because you still have feelings for her?" Kitty's voice drifted through the small apartment. She floated through the walls, such barriers meaning nothing to those no longer among the living.

"It's not that." Danny half-hissed, turning his glower on Kitty now. "We did use to be friends. At the very least she deserves to have _some _of her questions answered."

"She seemed to think that being friends wasn't in the past tense." Johnny noted. "All I'm saying is, that you need to do something about her before she gets in over her head. I don't know, maybe make an impression on people, let them know she's got Phantom watching her? Not at lot of people will touch her if they know that."

"I don't think that would fly too well with my _father_." Danny noted, hissing the last word, slumping back down in his chair. "You know he doesn't like me."

"Oh he likes you plenty, it's just Phantom he can't stand." Kitty noted. "Speaking of Phantom, I know you got nicked by Skulker last night, so off with the shirt and let me see it. I don't trust the way you wrap bandages." She said, producing a first aid kit. "And I won't be having any arguments. Come on."

"Sure you just don't want an excuse for me to take my shirt off?" Danny half-joker, half grumbled. But he complied, tossing off the black, long sleeved shirt that he wore. There were loose bandages tied off right underneath his armpits, caked with old blood underneath his left. "Damn bastard always zeroes in for the blind spot."

"You could just get rid of the eye bandages." Kitty noted, floating over to him. Grabbing the bandages that were already there, she simply turned them intangible, tossing them off into a corner to be dealt with later. "We all know that you don't really need them." She remarked, her eyes darting up to the eye patch that covered the boy's right eye.

"And if they go back to their normal color, I will." Danny observed sourly. "Are you my friends or are you trying to fill in for my parents?" He grumbled, muttering that comment underneath his breath.

"Hm." Kitty simply frowned, turning her attention to more properly dressing Danny's wound. It was one of many that littered his chest, she thought, and it looked like it had been deeper than she had first suspected, if the fact that there were some rather sloppy stitches that ran up it. Due to being half ghost, he healed fast, but his flesh was still very mortal. A wound like this wouldn't have mattered to her or Johnny, but to someone half-human, well...

That was a different story.

Carefully, she moved to do her best to clean and disinfect it, before she properly bandaged it back up this time. She'd had practice after all, though no reason for using her skills for years, not after she and Johnny had died. After all, Johnny had the worst luck- be it accidents or a fight, he was always getting himself head over heels in trouble. And he hadn't changed one lick since death.

"There you go, all done." She said, stepping back as Danny got up and tugged his shirt back on. "Johnny's right though, you should probably figure out what to do about that goth girl before she gets caught up in something she shouldn't." She told him.

"Fine, if she starts sticking her nose into my business anymore, I'll do something about it." Danny said, throwing up his hands. "But she'll give up soon enough, anyways."

"Somehow I don't think that's the case." Kitty observed, a tight frown on her face.

"Anything yet?" Sam asked, leaning over Tucker's chair. His mother had directed her up to his room when she had come a calling, since for once, his phone was off. He didn't seem to hear her as she came into the room, so fixated he was on his work. As a result, he nearly jumped out of his skin the moment Sam spoke up, whirling around to face her with wide eyes, one hand over his hard.

"Oh it's just you." He said, letting out a deep sigh of relief. "Jesus, Sam, you know not to scare me like that."

"Sorry." She gave him a small smile. "But I didn't think you would notice me any other way. You seemed pretty absorbed in that." She said, her eyes flickering over to his computer screen. There sat one of Spectra's coded documents on Danny, no more discernible than when she had seen it last. Although if she took the amount of crumpled up paper around Tucker's desk, covered with writing, that wasn't through any lack of effort.

"How's it going?" She chanced to ask.

"Barely." Tucker rolled his eyes. "For a high school counselor, she sure does know her code. I've haven't made a breakthrough yet." He told her. "Though, once that happens, the rest should come easy. It would be better if I could get some of my online buddies to look at it, but given the content in question... probably best not to be doing that. I don't think Danny would appreciate me airing any of his personal data on the Internet."

"I wouldn't appreciate." She said shortly. "That said, I found Spike, in the most _disgusting _barbeque place known to man, by the way, and I think that I managed to find a lead. One of his friends said that they thought they saw Danny hanging out in the warehouse district, where they've apparently renovated some warehouses into apartments awhile back."

"You think he's living over there?" Tucker asked, quirking a brow.

"Maybe." Sam said. "It might also just be that he was visiting someone. But it's a lead, and it's one that I intend to follow."

"Sam." Tucker said slowly, looking at his friend with equal parts worry and warning. "The warehouse district is a pretty unsavory place as well. Not as dangerous as The Underground but..."

"Oh come on Tucker. We'll never get anywhere at this rate. And clearly I can't wait for you to decipher some code that may or may not help us." She said, crossing her arms. "I'm not an idiot though, Tucker, if I go there, I was planning to go when it's daylight out."

"Yeah, well, you also said that you wouldn't go to The Underground, and yet you did." Tucker noted, arching an eyebrow. "Can't help but feel a little doubtful about your words, Sam."

"I didn't go to The Underground, I looked at it from across the street." She pointed out. "I said nothing about not doing that."

"Point taken." Tucker shrugged his shoulders. "Anyways, just use your head Sam. I know you really want to find Danny and bring him home, but don't get in over your head, okay? I know you don't want to admit it, but whatever kind of life he's leading now, it's clear that he's gotten himself mixed up with some dangerous people, and some dangerous things. I mean come on, he's friends with _Phantom_, for crying out loud."

"Why would he be though?" Sam frowned. "I don't understand it Tuck, I don't understand any of it! It's like there's a big piece of the puzzle that I'm missing, and that we'll never be able to solve this without it. I just have no idea what it could be."

"I'm with you on that one." Tucker said, tapping his pencil against the desk in thought. "All I know is, he was acting weird for months before Jazz and Mrs. Fenton's accident. I think whatever was going on with him now had already started back then. I think their accident was just sort of like... some kind of dam breaking or something. Probably not the best metaphor, but English has never been my best subject."

"No, I think you're on the right track." Sam said. For a few moments, she considered asking Mr. Fenton about it- but then she decided against it. Talking to Danny's father now and asking him any number of no doubt weird questions about his son, would no doubt cause him to wonder if she'd discovered anything. And the last thing she wanted to tell Jack Fenton was that his son was hanging out in the Underground, and was good buddies, apparently, with Phantom.

She wondered if he already knew. But judging from the fact that the man hadn't tried to tear down half the city looking for the white haired ghost, she decided that he didn't. There was no way that he would simply let such rumors lie.

After all, Jack Fenton really, _really _hated Phantom.

* * *

"You're still living in this dump, I take it?"

One blue eye flickered up towards the source of the voice, and then proceeded to roll, as Danny let out a note of disgust at the person speaking to him. He had a feeling that there was a slime ball approaching, but he'd hoped it wasn't the one that he hated the most. "What do you want, Plasmius?"

"Why, simply to speak with you, little badger." The blue skinned ghost said, landing in front of him- though he crinkled his nose slightly at the cigarette that hung out of his mouth. "Still engaging in that nasty habit I see. Really now Daniel, you shouldn't tempt your own fate like that."

"I'm not exactly in the mood to be lectured by a fruitloop." Danny noted, blowing out a ring of smoke, standing up to glower at the man. He'd gained a good deal of height since he'd first met this man, the only other half ghost that he knew about, and the two of them were now roughly on the same footing. "Spit it out, Plasmius. What do you want from me? Honestly, if it's not one thing it's another these days."

"I just hoped perhaps you had reconsidered my invitation." Plasmius said simply. Dealing with the younger half ghost had been much easier- and far more amusing- before the tragic death of his mother and his older sister. Frankly, Plasmius was still numb. To think that his Maddie, the woman that he loved so dearly, could have been wiped from the face of the Earth so easily. He would have rather have had it be Jack.

"What, to join you?" Danny snorted, rolling his eyes. "Not interested. Never was, never will be. Just because I'm not with my father anymore doesn't mean that I want to destroy him."

"Your past actions show evidence to the contrary." Plasmius noted. Indeed, he'd noticed Phantom's increased aggression towards Jack Fenton lately- it was why he'd even bothered seeking out the boy again. To be honest, he would have been more than happy to simply let him self destruct, but the fact that he carried his secret with him was more than a little worrisome. He didn't want anything accidentally slipping out from the younger boy in a fit of madness.

And surely, Daniel Fenton had gone just a little bit mad. Plasmius could not entirely blame him. Sometimes he talked to things that were not there, things that no one else but him could see. Plasmius wondered at time, what the boy was seeing, that no one else could.

After all, after causing the accident that cost the lives of two members of his family- how could he not? He'd never gotten all of the details out of the boy- or really any details. The exact circumstances of what had happened that day were still cloaked in mystery. Perhaps the only one who knew the truth was Danny himself, and he simply wasn't talking.

Plasmius didn't have it in his heart to hate the boy for the loss of Maddie- clearly he was already beating himself up over it enough already. To be honest- it worried him, more than a little.

"Still, not interested." Danny said shortly, glowering at Plasmius, his good eye now glowing a bright green. In the past, Vlad would have made a quip about it being 'the scary eyes', but honestly, these days his green eyed glare had in fact, gotten a bit more intimidating. There was madness behind those eyes, he knew, that Daniel was constantly dancing on the brink of.

"Very well." Plasmius said after a few moments. "But you know where you can find me if you do change your mind." He paused, almost as if hesitating to say this. "Your father really is out of mind over worry for you. You should at least give him a phone call, let him know that you're not lying dead in a gutter somewhere."

"I don't want to hear that from the guy who wants my father dead." Danny said. "Why do you care anyways?"

"Both Jack Fenton and I lost someone that we loved that day." Plasmius said after a moment. "I don't blame him for wanting to cling to the last member of his family that he has left. Weren't you the one who said it to me? That your family would accept you, no matter what?"

"Circumstances were different then." Danny said shortly. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Yes of course." Plasmius nodded his head. He knew when not to press. "Just at least consider letting him know that you're alive. I'm sure it would easy his worries a little." Feeling that his welcome was wearing thing, Plasmius took this as his cue to leave, vanishing from sight.

Danny glowered still, letting out a deep sigh as the older half ghost finally left him alone. Plasmius was persistent, as always. He didn't want to go live with him, nor did he want to go back home to his father- he didn't even really consider Fenton Works his home anymore, not after it was clear that one half of him wasn't even welcome. If there was anything that he wanted to do, it was to leave Amity Park, go as far away as he possibly could from everything.

But he stayed. He didn't know why, exactly. Some vague sense of obligation? Some kind of attachment? Whatever it was, it caused him to keep his roots here, even if he did wander away from the city every so often.

_"You should **really** take his advice, for once, Danny."_

The eighteen year old boy froze, wincing as the voice floated up to his ears. No doubt in a few moments, her form would flicker into view. Insubstantial, with no real corporal form, someone that no one else could see but him, not even the ghosts that he hung around. Sure enough, in a few moments, she flickered into 'life' in front of him, her orange hair floating about her, aqua eyes staring at him. She was mostly made out of mist, perfectly see through, and he knew from experience that she couldn't interact with anything but him. She ended off in mist well before her torso ended, and her hands only seemed to appear when she needed them to, otherwise everything else was a vague mist.

Danny wasn't sure if she was really a ghost, or a figment of his imagination. She didn't set off his ghost sense, at any rate, and he still had enough presence of mind left to realize he was probably more than a little crazy.

"Go away Jazz." He grumbled, refusing to look at the maybe, maybe not specter in front of him. Instead he walked right through her, passing through the doorway into the apartment complex. She broke like fog before him, frowning stubbornly as he did so, her hands manifesting themselves as she placed them on her non existent hips.

"Come on now Danny, you're still going to try and ignore me? I'm trying to help you, you know." She said, floating after him.

"You're a figment of my imagination, I'm not going to take advice from you." He grumbled.

"I am _not_." She huffed again, a note of offense riding in her voice. "Danny, come on. What could it hurt to just call him? Let him hear your voice for a minute. You don't even need to tell him anything about where you are, just tell him that you're alive." She pleaded with him.

"Nope." Danny said shortly, phasing in through the door of his apartment. Putting out his cigarette, he tossed it into a nearby trash can. "I'm done with him already. He's better off cutting me out of his life too."

"Why won't you just listen to me!?" Jazz hissed, stamping her foot against the ground- or she would, if she had any feet. "I'm not a figment of your imagination Danny, I'm real, and I'm trying to help you. As it is, all I'm doing is watching you spiral more and more into darkness. I thought you were going to start getting better after..." Jazz hesitated here, and her image broke slightly, as if she didn't want to say the next words.

"After Sam talked me down from the roof?" Danny finished for her, a rather expressionless look on his face. "It got better. I just decided the best medicine was leaving that life behind. Now I don't have to pretend anything anymore."

"You're pretending _plenty_." His maybe sister, maybe hallucination chided him. "Danny, even now, dad would understand if you just came clean, told everything to him. The accident wasn't your fault, you know that right? It was Spectra's." She said, floating over to him, her hands manifesting once more as she placed them on his shoulders. He got the barest hints of a sensation from her touch, and shrugged them off.

"It was my fault." Danny said. "I allowed myself to be manipulated."

"Danny..." Jazz said slowly, frowning at him. "You know it's not like that. You won in the end."

"But at what cost?" He asked her. "I'm not a hero, Jazz, I never was. I was just playing at the role, and look what happened because of it." He frowned, all but throwing himself on the couch that doubled as his bed. Kicking off his combat boots, he tossed them to the side of the room. "Dad wouldn't understand. He hates Phantom. He hates _me_. I'd be just another ghost to him, just another target. It's probably better this way for him too."

"No you're just outright lying to yourself." Jazz frowned, floating above him. "I hoped that when Sam showed up yesterday you might say something to her. She's worried about you, you know? Everyone is. Me included."

"You are a figment of my imagination, a product of my ongoing madness, so nobody cares what you think." Danny muttered, cleaning out an ear with his finger, frowning.

"You are not going mad Danny." Jazz frowned. "Maybe a little. But _I'm_ not a product of it. I'm a ghost, for crying out loud. I never thought I'd have to convince _you _of all people about the existence of ghosts."

"Then explain why I'm the only one who can see and hear you?" Danny asked, closing his eyes, pulling off his eye patch and hanging it over the side of the couch. "You've never been able to come up with an answer to that one."

"I know I'm real." Jazz said finally, her form flickering some more. She would be gone soon enough, Danny thought, his hallucinations could only last a certain length of time. "Fine. Have it your way for now Danny. But this isn't over." She said, before she finally flickered out of sight.

"Finally." Danny mumbled, putting his hands behind his head, yawning a little. "Now maybe I can get some sleep."

* * *

Bright and early in the morning, Sam Manson bundled up, wearing her thickest coat against the winter cold, and headed out. Stored in her jacket were her tazer and ecto-pistol, just in case she ran into any trouble, and she had a can of mace shoved inside of her bag. She was going to check out that lead she had gotten from one of Spike's friends, come hell or high water.

She had called Mr. Fenton last night, finally, only telling him that someone had spotted Danny, so at the very least, he was alive. That seemed to provide the man some comfort, but she had then lied, apologizing that she didn't know anything more. Jack believed her, believed her so easily that her stomach churned.

She hated lying.

At least it was a nice day for a change, bright and sunny for once. Maybe the ice that caked the streets and sidewalks of Amity Park would finally have a chance to melt. As it was, she was careful to avoid ice hazards as she made her way towards the warehouse district. She kept her guard up, not wanting to feel safe just because it was early morning, and bright out- there could still be danger lurking in every corner.

The warehouse district really was a mess, she thought, as she passed into it, after spotting her first collapsed drunk. The man had pissed himself and then passed out, from the looks of it, and for a brief second, she'd wondered if he were dead. The rise and fall of his chest, however, convinced her otherwise. Pressing on, she glanced about her, trying to make out anything resembling street addresses.

It was hopeless, she thought after a few minutes. How did anyone navigate through this place?

Groaning, but determined not to give up, Sam continued on. Although the chill of the winter air was starting to sink into her bones, she was determined not to let it get to her. She was going to find this place. This would be easier said than done, if not for the fact that everything around her looked exactly the same. Would the reconstructed warehouse apartments even look any different from anything else? Were they even accessible from the outside, or would she be stuck waiting outside of them until someone came out?

She'd been able to confirm their existence, but not much else. This was in the part of Amity Park that not many people wanted to mess around with, at any rate. If her parents knew that she was here, they would have likely locked her up in her room, and refused to let her leave the house. She knew that they thought Danny was a 'weird kid' even before everything happened, so she could only imagine what they would think of him now, now that he was apparently hanging out at night clubs, under aged, and hanging out with ghosts.

How did he even get into the club at eighteen anyways? Wouldn't he just get booted right out? Was it because he rolled, apparently, with the likes of Johnny and Kitty? Sam didn't know, she didn't have the answers to these questions. It would seem that the more she looked, she only found more questions, with nary an answer in sight. To be honest, it was getting a little more than frustrating.

Why Phantom?

That was what Sam wanted to know. People said that they were friends, multiple people. Over the past four years, Phantom had become more dangerous- sure, he still played hero sometimes, when it amused him, but he was a far cry from the heroic teenage ghost that had first appeared, four years ago. It was just him showing his true colors, Mr. Fenton had said, and soon he would drop the hero act altogether. Sam had no reason to question the ghost hunter, save for something in her gut that told her that it wasn't true.

She didn't understand why.

Last night had been the first time she had ever spoken with the white haired ghost- and to be honest, she still hadn't figured out what kind of impression of him she should have taken from it. He was hard to read, and concealed his emotions well, something she never had liked. A faint hint of pink rose to her cheeks as she recalled his comments about his relationship with Ember- so apparently, even ghosts were interested in _that _sort of thing.

He'd spoken with a confidence that said that he had no doubts about himself, and yet, Sam could sense that this was just a mask. He was entirely consisted of masks, and Sam had no idea where it was that Phantom's true face might lie, or what even it might be. Was it, like Mr. Fenton said, that of an evil specter, bent on destroying us all? Or perhaps something else, something a bit more human. He'd never really seemed to fit in with the other ghosts, even after he stopped fighting them seriously and started hanging out with some of them.

She wasn't sure why she thought that. Nobody else ever seemed to notice.

Perhaps it was just from experience. Sam was also used to not really fitting in anywhere. Her place was with Tucker- and had been with Danny.

She hoped that she could still get Danny back to his place by her side. It felt empty without him around.

Frowning, she glanced around her, wondering if she was only managing in getting herself lost. She considered asking someone... but there was no one about really that looked as if they were worth asking. Most of them were still drunk, or hungover from last night. Shaking her head, Sam continued on, keeping her eyes peeled for any sign that she had found her goal. In doing so, however, she momentarily forgot to watch her feet, and with a startled yelp, she found herself losing her balance, slipping on a bad patch of ice.

Although she desperately tried to regain her footing, Sam failed, her head impacting the ground with a loud and rather painful thud. Her vision swam for a moment- and then everything was black.

"But why did you have to bring her _here!?"_

Voices.

Sam's head throbbed, pain coursing through her head. She could hear voices. What had happened? Oh, that was right. She'd slipped on a patch of ice, and had fallen and then... then what?

"It was the only place I could, The Box Ghost, could take her without fear of being pummeled! I knew you would not be pleased if you found out I had left her to her doom!" A booming voice spoke- and Sam didn't need to recognize this voice, since he'd just loudly declared his name. The Box Ghost... why would the Box Ghost take her anywhere?

Strangely, she didn't feel any fear, especially not once the voice that had first woken her spoke up again. She knew this voice. She knew it very well.

"I don't _want _her _here_." He hissed, clearly sound displeased. "Do you even know what this place _is_, Boxy? What kind of people are here? Not the kind of people I want Sam hanging around, to be honest."

She knew that voice.

It clicked in her head after a moment, delayed by the dull throbbing in her skull. She hoped she didn't have a concussion. Did she need to go to the hospital? Ugh, her parents were going to kill her.

But she knew that voice. It was like music to her ears.

Slowly cracking open her eyes, her vision swam in front of her, and she groaned. The argument ceased, as if they had both heard her. Her eyes still unfocused, she attempted to push herself up- was she on a couch, she thought? It must have been a couch, it didn't seem like a bed, or the floor.

That voice. She had to get her vision to focus, because that voice...

"Danny...?" Sam croaked out, her vision slowly steadying. "Is that you?" She could feel her heart pound in her chest- she had found him, she had really found him again, hadn't she?

But when her vision cleared, it wasn't Danny that was standing there in front of her.

It was Phantom.

"Sorry." Phantom spread his hands in front of him, giving her a small helpless grin. "You've got the wrong person."

This was wrong, Sam thought- it wasn't right. She was sure, so sure, that had been Danny's voice. But the person before her was Phantom, not Danny. And yet, even now, the voice that met her ears sounded so familiar, like she had known the owner for years, aside from the slight echo that touched it.

It was the same.

Phantom and Danny had the exact same voice. Why had she never noticed?

Maybe it was because she didn't like where her thoughts were all now headed to- not one bit.


	4. The Underground

Author's Note: Chapter Four is here! This one is a bit shorter than the others, but I suppose it's also exactly the length that it needs to be. Nobody wants to read boring space filler, after all! Anyways, we're kicking it in to gear here, and the wheels of the plot will now begin to churn. Secrets will be revealed, people will be exposed, other people's lives will be put in danger, and shocking truths will come out! Or so they soon shall, in the upcoming chapters. Yes, there will be enough drama to choke a horse.

Danny Phantom does not belong to me. As always, please read and review! You guys fuel my muse.

Also vaguely debating starting a sketch ask blog for my DP AUs on tumblr, but I don't know if anyone would be interested in that? If there's interest, I'll give it a shot at the very least. Let me know what you think!

* * *

Thawing the Ice

Chapter Four: The Underground

"Oh." Sam said finally, laughing a little. "The wrong person, huh? Well that's a bit embarrassing. It's just-" she began, leveling her gaze so she met with Phantom's good eye. "...you sound a lot like Danny."

"Oh, how about that?" Phantom said, shrugging his shoulders. "Didn't know, nobody ever pointed it out before. I guess you know the guy pretty well then." He told her. To his credit, he didn't even flinch, ready to brush everything off from the moment he heard Sam mutter his real name. "I guess you really do learn something new every day."

"Isn't that because-?" The Box Ghost began, but was quickly cut off by a kick to the side of his head, and found himself inside the Fenton Thermos in short order.

Sam blinked, quirking an eyebrow. The Box Ghost had clearly been about to point something out, something that Phantom clearly didn't want to be said out loud. Still, she decided that perhaps her best strategy at the moment was to hold her tongue, and wait to see if any new information managed to fall into her lap. Sometimes silence was the wisest plan, after all.

For now, she pushed back the surge of thoughts that had began rushing out when she realized that the voices of the two boys were the same. She needed to focus- she could think about this, and about other things, later. Right now, that wasn't her priority.

Besides, nobody did their best thinking when their head was throbbing from smacking it into the ground.

"Bastard always manages to overstay his welcome." Phantom frowned, setting down the rather battered looking Fenton Thermos. It looked like it had been through hell and back, dented in places and growing rather dingy in others. "Still can't believe that he had the nerve to bring you here." He said, rolling his eyes.

"Here?" Sam asked, glancing about, finally taking in the room around her. She had been resting on a couch, that much she knew. There was another one across from her, a glass coffee table set in between them. There was a large, wide screen television on one end of the room, and speakers hooked up to the four corners of the wall. A mini bar sat at the other end of the room, although the drinks that had been abandoned on the counter didn't appear to be anything Sam found appetizing, strange, glowing concoctions. "And that would be...?" She ventured, although she got the feeling that she already knew the answer- and that she wouldn't like it.

"You're in The Underground." Phantom told her simply, watching as the girl paled. "In a private room. I make use of it. Nobody else can come up here without my permission. You're safe as long as you're up here anyways." He told her. "Don't worry, I'll take responsibility for the Box Ghost's stupidity and take you someplace safe away from here."

"And right after I told Tucker I wouldn't be going anywhere near here again." Sam grumbled, keeping it to herself that she had been seriously considering coming back again anyways. She didn't want that little tidbit of information leaking out, and she wasn't sure how trustworthy Phantom's mouth was. "I don't suppose Danny is here tonight?" She asked, quirking her brows.

"Not tonight." Phantom shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry if you were hoping to catch up with him. You sure are persistent about that, aren't you? Boxy says he found you wandering around the warehouse district. Not exactly the kind of place for a rich young lady of your kind to be. What were you doing hanging around there?"

"I don't see why I have to answer that." Sam said, frowning at him. "You won't really answer any of my questions, Phantom, so I don't see why I should have to answer yours."

"Oh, a tough one." Phantom couldn't help but grin. "Well, that's not a bad thing. I like a girl with a backbone, so long as she's not pointing an ectogun to my head."

"You mean like the Red Hunter?" Sam asked.

"The Red Hunter's pretty annoying, yeah." Phantom admitted. "I don't see what her beef with me is."

"You cost her father his job." Sam pointed out, trying to see if she was ready to stand up yet. Her head started throbbing more as she moved, causing her to feel lightheaded, so she decided it would be best to stay seating. Curiously, she thought that she caught a brief look of concern in Phantom's otherwise ghostly eyes.

Well, perhaps he wasn't quite so bad as she had first thought.

"Didn't do it on purpose. Tried to tell her as much, but of course, she doesn't really listen." Phantom frowned. "You want some ice for that?"

"I could use some." Sam admitted, lightly reaching up to feel where she was sure the growing bump was, wincing even though her fingers only brushed lightly against it. Yeah, that was going to be sore as hell in the morning- what time was it anyways, though? "I don't suppose you know what time it is?"

"Nearly nine." Phantom told her, floating over to the mini bar, pulling out some towels from behind it. His left hand and good eye glowed blue for a moment, before a cluster of little ice cubes were formed in his hand, and he wrapped them up in the towels. "Here. Ghost ice, so it won't melt."

Sam let out a low whistle, wincing a little. "My parents and Tucker are going to kill me." She said, reaching into her skirt pocket to see if she could call them. She groaned, however, once she pulled out her cell phone, realizing that her fall had caused it to shatter. Judging from the fact that it wasn't even in one piece anymore, she doubted that she could use it to call anyone. "I don't suppose that you have a cell phone, Phantom?" She asked, accepting the makeshift ice pack from him. "And thank you."

"You're welcome. And yes, actually, I do." Phantom told her, pulling out the cell phone in question. There was no harm in showing it to Sam, there wasn't anything comprising in it, and he'd replaced his old one once he left home, so that his father couldn't trace him by it. "Just a suggestion, but if you're going to call your folks, I don't think you should let them know you're here. They might try and have a SWAT team sent here to collect you."

"You sound like you know my parents well." Sam noted, placing the makeshift ice pack on her head, taking the phone from him with her other hand. It was an old model phone, a standard flip one. She wondered why on Earth a ghost would even have a cell phone in the first place, and a quick glance at his contacts told her Phantom wasn't alone. Apparently Johnny, Kitty, and Ember all had them as well.

"Well, they do sort of have a certain reputation." Phantom shrugged his shoulders. "They're at forefront of the people opposing this place, after all."

"Can you blame them?" Sam asked, inputting her home phone number into it. "After all, you've said it yourself, this is a very dangerous place for innocent civilians like myself to be."

"It is." Phantom admitted. "But it's not a bad place. There's nice folks here, at the end of the day. But it's also a place that people easily fall into temptation." He told her.

"Mm. Shut up for a second Phantom, I don't want my parents to know that I'm hanging out with you." She said, dialing their number. Putting the phone to her ear, she wasn't all that shocked when it was picked up halfway through the first ring, and her mother's desperate voice met her ear. "Hey, mom, it's me."

"No, yeah, I'm fine. I just broke my old phone. No, yeah, I fell on it. It's in pieces so I'm pretty sure that it can't be fixed. Oh no, yeah- I, mom, no, I'm safe, I borrowed a friend's phone to call you. No yeah, I'm at the library. There's a paper I need to work on, I've been pretty engrossed in it. Yeah, no I'll come home soon, don't worry." Sam said over the phone. "Yeah, okay. Bye mom." She said, hanging up, before she passed the cell phone back to Phantom.

"Sounds like a worrywart." Phantom said, taking the phone and pocketing it again.

"You don't know the half of it." Sam said, shaking her head. "They're always prattling on about bad influences. They didn't like Danny either, blamed him for my whole goth thing, said it was because of his parent's whack job occupation. Even after everyone learned ghosts were real, they really haven't changed their opinion too much on Mr. Fenton. I mean, they're more sympathetic to him as of late, but..."

Sam trailed off there, realizing that she was about to head into potentially dangerous territory. Phantom was her safe ticket out of here, as much as she hated to admit it, so she didn't want to do anything to make him angry. Thankfully, just then, there was a knock on the door, before Ember McClain phased through the door, pausing briefly to glance at her, before she turned her gaze over towards Phantom.

"Hey, they're starting downstairs, Phantom. You better get your ass down there before things get hairy." She told him.

"Right, yeah." Phantom nodded his head. "You stay here and make sure Miss Goth doesn't get any ideas, okay?" He asked her.

"Sure thing, baby pop." Ember agreed, smiling as she floated up to him, giving him a quick peck on the lips. Strangely, Sam found herself rather annoyed at the gesture, perhaps a little jealous, even. She didn't even like Phantom, why the hell did she care about who he kissed?

"You stay here." Phantom warned Sam again, before he floated past Ember, phasing through the door, leaving the two of them alone. He popped his head back in after a second, locking eyes with Ember. "And be nice, Ember. She's a guest. Who has had head trauma recently." He told her, before he phased back out of the door.

There was a rather tense silence in the room them, which Sam broke by clearing her throat. Great, alone in a private room in a dangerous nightclub with a dangerous ghost, one who had tried to take over the world at least once before. She couldn't think of any other place that she would rather be, she frowned, even her thoughts now dripping with sarcasm.

"So uh, you and Phantom, is that a thing?" Sam asked, desperate for something other than silence to fill the room.

"Sometimes. It's not very serious." Ember said, floating over to land on the couch in front of her, pulling out her guitar, strumming on it lightly. "What, you jealous kid?" She asked, glancing over at her.

"What?" Sam laughed. "Are you kidding me? I'm not interested in Phantom. I was just curious about the rumors." She said, before frowning a little. "So um, have you...?"

"Mmhm." Ember said simply, strumming another note.

"But you're both ghosts." Sam stated, arching a brow.

"And?" Ember asked, returning her look. "There's nothing wrong with that. Carnal passions aren't limited to the living, you know."

Sam felt her face flush a little at that, coughing a bit to cover it up, although she knew full well that Ember noticed, judging from the smirk on her face. "Well, he's got his heart set on someone other than me, though. _Real_ serious, too."

That was news to her- was she saying that Phantom was in love with someone? "Who?"

"Not my place to say. You're a curious one, aren't you? You'd think you'd have a little more self awareness as to the situation that you're in right now." She said.

"You're not going to do anything to me." Sam said, shaking her head. "You don't want to go against Phantom."

"True enough." Ember commented. "I'm not stupid, after all."

Another awkward silence. "So, um, what exactly did Phantom leave to do?" She asked, glancing towards the door, suddenly finding herself wishing that he would hurry back.

"Rooting out some dealers." Ember commented. "Passing around a real nasty drug. Nothing but trouble. Phantom doesn't want anyone ending up dead on his doorstep, so to speak. He still worries about you humans even still."

"Oh." Sam said, blinking a little. Maybe she had misjudged him a little after all. "So um, you like music, I guess?"

"It's the only thing I remember." Ember told her, strumming away. "So I like it. Not all ghosts remember who they were before they died. Johnny and Kitty do, I don't."

"What about Phantom?" Sam asked.

"Phantom's unique." Ember told her, locking eyes with the girl, a silent warning in them. "And that's all I'll say about that."

"Right, okay." Sam nodded her head, not wanting to push her luck, not when there were ghosts involved. "So uh, do you know Danny Fenton?" She asked.

"I do." Ember nodded her head, returning to strumming her guitar. Now that Sam actually listened to her, she seemed to have a great degree of skill. Too bad she had wasted it on some cheesy mainstream pop song, she thought. "He's a mixed up kid. We all are. Sometimes he sees things that aren't there."

"I... didn't know that." Sam admitted, glancing away. She _hadn't_ known that at all, as much as she claimed that Danny was her best friend. This news worried her deeply, and she wasn't inclined to think that Ember was lying to her. "We're all really worried about him. We just want him to come home."

"He doesn't want to." Ember said simply. "I won't tell him to do anything he doesn't want to, either. He and Phantom... they're close." She said, although from her tone, it seemed that there was a bit of something more there, something that she wasn't saying. "He's better off here, with us."

"Than with his father? With access to people who can help him with... whatever he's seeing?" Sam asked, her tone incredulous.

"The last time someone sent him to a shrink, they forgot to check whether or not the shrink actually wanted to help people." She said shortly, abruptly stopping her guitar playing, locking eyes with her.

"Miss Spectra is a highly accredited therapist." Sam glowered at her. A highly accredited therapist who also happened to keep her records on Danny in weird code, she couldn't help but add in her head, and she knew her flash of doubt showed up on her face.

"Miss Spectra is a crackpot." Ember said shortly. "Don't bring that name up around Phantom by the way, if you know what's good for you. Even you won't get off easy, princess."

"You make it sound like I'm special." Sam remarked.

"You are." Ember told her, going back to her guitar. "You're real special to the both of them."

"Oh come on, Phantom hadn't even met me until two days ago." Sam said, rolling her eyes. He did, however, know her name. That combined with the fact that his voice sounded an awful lot like Danny's... Sam couldn't help but frown, wondering.

Perhaps there was a connection after all.

Another awkward silence fell over the room then, only broken by the sound of Ember's guitar. It didn't seem like the ghost rocker was much for talking anymore. Sam groaned, leaning back on the couch, wondering when it was that Phantom was going to come back. She took a wild guess that the private room was soundproof, because she couldn't hear a thing that was happening downstairs.

After what seemed like forever, Phantom phased back through the door, quickly checking to make sure everything was fine between the two girls. "Okay, that's taken care of. Johnny has his shadow dumping them off at the nearest station, let them take care of them. You should have seen the looks on their faces, out of towners." He smirked. "Clearly, they thought that the rumors of Amity Park having a ghost infestation were just that."

"Punks." Ember snorted, her guitar vanishing and reappearing slung on her back. Floating to her feet, she patted Phantom on the shoulder, before she left the two of them alone again.

"I didn't know you did things like that." Sam observed, once they were alone again, looking over at Phantom. "I can't quite figure out what it is that you want to be Phantom. Are you really trying to be some kind of hero?"

"No." Phantom said honestly. "I'm not a hero." He told her, frowning deeply. "I used to think that I could be one, but I was shown the error of my ways."

"The accident." Sam ventured.

"...yes." Phantom said finally, averting his gaze from her. "That was part of it." He told her. "Look, I'd better get you home. Is your head going to be okay?" He asked.

"I'll live." She said, setting aside the ice pack. She found herself able to stand on her feet without wanting to fall over, at any rate.

"Good to know." Phantom said, and before she could protest, Sam found herself scooped up in his arms, carried princess style.

"Hey!" She fussed against his arms, trying to push against his chest. "I don't remember saying anything about letting you carry me, Phantom!"

"This is the best way to take you home." Phantom told her, shrugging his shoulders, before a small smirk appeared on his face. "Unless of course, you want me to overshadow you and just walk your body out of here."

"Ugh, no thanks." Sam grimaced.

"That's what I suspected." Phantom laughed. "Anyways, it's dark and I'll let you off a bit from your house. So you don't have to worry about people starting to whisper about how Sam Manson is hanging around the ghost boy."

"I'd never hear the end of it, from my parents and from Mr. Fenton." Sam said, shaking her head. "He really doesn't like you at all. It's partly your own fault, though." She pointed out.

"I know." Phantom said, and for a brief moment, there seemed to be a hint of something- regret? Shame?- in his gaze, before she yelped, a strange cold sensation washing through her body as Phantom turned them both intangible, slipping through the walls and flying outside with her. "He's not wrong to." He said finally, as they turned tangible again.

Glancing down at the ground far below them, Sam couldn't help but find herself cling to the ghost boy a little tighter, well aware what would happen to her if Phantom lost her grip. There was no way that she could survive that kind of fall- and Phantom seemed to notice her worries.

"Don't worry, I won't drop you." He said gently, more gently than she knew he could be capable of. There was a silence between the two of them again, but strangely, it didn't seem to be an awkward silence like she had with Ember earlier. It was almost comfortable in a way, familiar in a way that Sam couldn't place. Like she was hanging out with an old friend, and not with Amity Park's public enemy number one.

Finally, it was Phantom who broke it, once again refusing to meet her eyes. "He's fine, you know." He said. "Danny, that is. He'll live, he'll survive. You don't need to worry about him. I don't think he'll ever be coming home, though."

"He should, though." Sam said, not able to form her reasons into words at the moment. Oddly, she felt as if she didn't need to. "Ember mentioned... that he sees things sometimes. Things that aren't there."

Phantom grumbled at this, a note of annoyance in his voice when he spoke. "Did she? Well, yeah, I guess that much is true. But it's not like it's something that started recently."

"Do you know what he sees?" Sam asked.

"...his sister, apparently." Phantom said finally. "He sees his sister."

"Oh." Sam nodded her head, looking away from him, taking a moment to appreciate the view. Phantom's assurances that he wouldn't drop her seemed to help a little, and now that she took the chance to look at it, the scenery at night was actually very beautiful. Before she knew it, it seemed her trip with Phantom was over, and she found him lowering them to the ground, at least a block from her house. He put her down carefully, making sure she was steady on her feet before letting her go.

"Thanks for the lift." Sam said.

"It's not a problem." Phantom shook his head. "You should keep your nose out of Danny's business from now on though." He warned her. "You're more likely to get yourself in trouble than you are to be getting him to come home. Sometimes people's homes change, you know? Maybe you should just consider accepting that."

"I can't." Sam said simply, shaking her head. "I won't stop, at least not until I see him again myself. I need to talk to him. There's things that I haven't said yet to him."

"Well." There was a long pause there, almost as if Phantom was considering something. "Maybe you will." He shrugged his shoulders. "I've got to go. You know, ghost things to do." He grinned a little, before he flew off into the night sky, vanishing from sight.

"You're a hard one to figure out, Phantom." Sam mumbled to herself, before she turned around, and started heading back home.

* * *

It was early afternoon when Tucker Foley realized something strange.

It wasn't about the code, which he had yet to be able to break, much to his frustration. He was half starting to doubt that it was a code, to be honest, although he couldn't imagine what else it could be. A language? It wasn't like any other language that he had ever seen before, and quick check through the Internet seemed to confirm that this was a silly idea.

No, rather, it was about something else.

These were school records. They were meant to be accessed by other teachers, other members of the staff. Meant to inform them about their students, about special needs that the might have, about special care that they might need while in or out of class. And yet, they were in code. Surely to God, there were teachers who wanted to check on Danny's records while he was still attending Casper High School after the accident happened. What was the point if they couldn't make them out? Surely something would have happened to Spectra if the teachers looked at these documents, and discovered that they couldn't read any of them.

He had hacked straight into Spectra's computer, but now he wanted to check something else.

Closing out of the saved documents on Danny for now, brushing aside from of the papers he had been using to puzzle out the strange code, he decided to access the school's computer network again. This time he aimed for Mr. Lancer's computer, and decided to take a look at the computer records that Spectra had made available to the rest of the teachers. He had a sneaking feeling that it was going to look much different from the one he had been trying to figure out.

"As always, Lancer, your password is too easy." Tucker mumbled to himself, snorting a little as he typed in 'Shakespeare', and was granted remote access to Lancer's systems. After browsing around a bit, he found what he was looking for- student records. A bit of further searching brought him to the psych reports, and he quickly found one labeled 'Fenton, Daniel' and clicked on it, after saving it to his computer.

"A genius, as always, Tucker." He said to himself, finding that the document was written in plain English, much like the other ones that he had spotted on Spectra's computer. Scanning over it, he frowned a little, finding that it was awfully cut and dry, and told him nothing that he didn't know before- but it was also very short, much shorter than the pages and pages Spectra had about him on her own computer. Tucker's eyes narrowed- it didn't take a fool to realize that there was something weird going on here.

Maybe he should take a second look at Spectra's computer, he thought. It might shed some light onto her mysterious code, if nothing else. Logging out of Lancer's account, he entered back into the main network of Casper High again, and began the process of remotely accessing Spectra's computer.

"Changed her password." He frowned, not too worried about this. Spectra had clearly been worried about security in the first place, considering the effort that it had taken him to get into her records the first time. Someone prudent would surely change her password from time to time. Booting up his password checker program, he sat back, letting it run. Thinking that it would take a bit, he decided to grab a bite to eat from downstairs, and got up, heading to the kitchen.

Quickly fixing himself a turkey sandwich, heavy on the turkey, he glanced into the living room, noticing that it was empty. "Oh right." He said, recalling that his parents had gone out to help out at a church function. Something about a silent auction for charity or something. Well, whatever, having the house to himself was nice. He didn't exactly want his parents to know that he was hacking into the computers of the staff of Casper High- he didn't exactly think that it would go over very well with them, to say the least.

He was doing it for a good cause though! It wasn't like he was changing his grades or anything- even if he may have done something like that before, when he was a freshman. At least, he thought he did, for some reason, there was a week in freshman year that he could only remember in vague snippets. He didn't worry about it too much, to be honest.

Heading back upstairs, he sat his plate down, taking a bite out of his sandwich, before he glanced over at the password program, seeing if it had come up with anything. "Oh hey, progress already." He said, grinning a little to himself as he chewed. "I am the best." He gloated a little, chowing down on his sandwich.

Letter by letter, the new password began to take shape. And as he started to realize that the new password wasn't a random series of numbers, like the old one was, he frowned a little.

"Hello?" Tucker quirked a brow, suddenly feeling a bit cold. Ugh, had the heater broken again? Frowning, he stood up, heading over to check his thermostat. "What, does she switch between letter chains and random ass words or something?" He asked, frowning when it seemed that the thermostat was working just fine. Great- he wasn't starting to get sick or anything, was he?

Sighing, he sat back in his chair, taking another bite of his sandwich before glancing back at the generator- and then nearly choked, his eyes going wide. Forcing the food down his throat, he turned a fixed, frozen gaze onto his computer screen.

"Oh _shit_." He swore, scrambling into motion. "Shit, shit, **_shit_**, she _knows_."

_'H-E-L-L-O-T-U-C-K-'_

Shutting out of the password generator, he quickly exited out of the Casper High's computer network, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. He quickly got to his feet, racing over to the window, a wary glance outside to check and see if there were any police or anything lurking outside in the bushes. Upon seeing that there was nothing, he let out a sigh of relief, turning back around.

And his eyes went wide, as they met with glowing red ones.

A dull impact cracked against his skull then, as if he had been just struck with a blunt object, and the room spun around before him, before he crumpled into a heap on the floor, faintly seeing a trickle of red before his eyes before he blacked out.

* * *

Pulling her jacket around her a bit to fight off the chill of winter's night air, Sam found herself sneezing a little anyways. Striding down the sidewalk to her house, she wondered if her mother had actually bought her story about being at the library to work on a paper, and if she would be mad when she came home. Well, if she was, Sam could put up with it- it wasn't anything out of the ordinary at least. Her mother had never been very happy with most of her daughter's choices and hobbies.

It got to her, sometimes.

She knew, of course, without even having to ask, that she would be furious, outraged even if she learned that she was with Phantom, and that she had been inside The Underground, even if she hadn't gone there of her own free will, and hadn't even gone into the club proper. Her mother would probably lock her up and throw away the key- or worse, decide that maybe it was high time to move if this was what searching for her missing best friend lead her precious baby girl to do.

Sam snorted a little, shaking her head. She knew that all mothers always thought of their children as their babies, no matter how old they got, to some degree, but her mother was absurd about it. She was eighteen, hardly a child anymore, and she could handle herself. Sam had confidence in that.

Thinking over that evening's events, Sam couldn't help but frown a little. She still hadn't forgotten how similar Phantom and Danny's voices were, and the more she thought about it, the more honestly surprised she was that it had taken her this long to notice it. It wasn't like she hadn't heard Phantom speaking before, the ghost was infamous for his witty banter, one thing that hadn't seemed to have changed over the years. Getting the ghost to _shut up_ could be the trick sometimes.

For some reason, she couldn't shake the idea that there must have been a connection between the ghost boy and Danny, although she wasn't sure if this was an idea that she liked. It would explain, at least, why Danny had suddenly begun to hang around ghosts, perhaps. She supposed it could have been a coincidence, but for some reason, Sam had a feeling that wasn't the case. The Box Ghost seemed like he knew something at any rate, and vaguely, she wondered if she could track the portly specter down and force him to talk.

Somehow, she doubted it. The Box Ghost seemed like he would be a lot more afraid of Phantom than he would be of her.

Phantom had said that there might be a chance she could see Danny again- and Sam hoped that this was true. She doubted that Danny would give her any straight answers either- but at least she could confirm that he was alive. The news that he was apparently seeing things- and had been for some time- made Sam worry, of course it did. Vaguely, she wondered if Mr. Fenton knew, and decided that she should ask him about it. She would have to concoct some sort of story to go along with it, because she didn't think telling him the truth at this point would do anybody any favors.

Besides that, she wasn't even sure what kind of connection Phantom and Danny had. As it were, it was just a vague feeling, a suspicion on her part. She might be completely wrong, in the end, she really couldn't say, and the last thing that she wanted to do was to jump to conclusions.

She also wanted to ask Mr. Fenton something about the hallucination that Danny apparently saw- which she was a bit surprised Phantom knew about. It seemed like it would be a rather personal thing after all, not the sort of thing you would tell people, and it sort of pushed her further into the idea that the two of them were connected in some manner. Of course, there was always the chance that he could have learned about it purely by accident- she didn't know if Danny talked back to whatever it was that she saw.

Mostly, she wanted to ask Mr. Fenton if it were possible for a ghost to only be seen by one person. It might have been one, for all that Sam knew, and that would weigh easier on her soul than the idea that her best friend was hallucinating and had been for some time, judging by Phantom's words. She wondered how it was that she never noticed this was the case. Thinking back on it, she honestly couldn't come up with anything in her memories that seemed like her seeing something like this happen- but maybe she had just missed it. She didn't think Tucker knew about it either.

These thoughts filling her mind, she turned the corner that would put her on her street, and came to a stop.

Why was there a police car in front of her house?

Oh geez, had her mother not actually believed her? Was she filing a missing person's report right now? She could see her mother now, talking to a police officer on the front steps, her father with her, placing a hand on his wife's shoulder. Somehow, though, when her mother spotted her, suddenly Sam realized that this wasn't the case.

Something else must be going on.

Feeling her heart pound in her chest, Sam dashed over, making the kind of time that would have Mrs. Testlaff hounding her to join the track team. "Mom? Dad?" She looked up at them, and she knew that there was dread and fear alike apparent in her eyes. "What's going on? Is something wrong?"

"Samantha Manson?" The police officer asked, looking at her now.

"Yeah, that's me." She nodded her head, looking between the officer and her parents. "What's going on, officer?" She asked, turning her head back towards the woman. "Is something wrong?" She repeated the question, hearing her heart pounding in her chest, wondering how it was that nobody else could hear it as well. "I'm not in some kind of trouble, am I?"

"Oh no." The police officer shook her head, walking down the stairs to speak with her. "Not at all. Can you tell me when the last time you spoke with your friend, Tucker Foley, was though?"

"With Tucker?" Sam asked, her throat suddenly feeling dry. Had they found out that he had been hacking the school networks? Somehow, Sam didn't think so- this seemed much, much more serious than that. "Yesterday afternoon, at his house. Why?" She asked. "Did something happen to Tucker?"

_Please no please don't let something have happened to Tucker no, I can't have lose both of them._

"Sam, sweetie," Her mother began, and from the look in her eyes, Sam knew that something was very, _very _wrong indeed.

"Tucker's missing."


	5. Monsters Masquerading as Humans

Author's Note: Sorry for the wait (and after that cliffhanger too!) but here is chapter five! This one had some parts that I really enjoyed writing, ahhh~ We're about to dive into the serious plot of the story so you best be ready for it. There are some subtle hints here and there about things that are forthcoming, so if you catch them good job! Spectra's one of my all time favorite villains not just in Danny Phantom, but in everything ever, so I'm happy to finally be working on a story where she's the sole antagonist, as she very much deserves to me. Forget Vlad, here's a REAL Chessmaster.

Danny Phantom is not mine.

* * *

**Thawing the Ice**

Chapter Five: Monsters Masquerading as Humans

* * *

"Tucker's missing."

With just two words, Sam could almost feel her world crashing down around her. She barely even registered her mother's concerned hand on her shoulder, not hearing the officer's question if Sam knew of anyone that would want to harm Tucker. She was suddenly off, away, in some distant place far away from here, leaving her body behind.

And then she snapped out of it, suddenly finding herself returning to the here and now all at once.

Shaking off her mother's hand, Sam turned to the officer, her question finally registering with her. "No." She lied. Surely she should tell the officer that Tucker was looking into something for her, shouldn't she? That Tucker had been investigating Penelope Spectra's files on their missing friend, Danny Fenton, which for some strange reason, were written entirely in code. That had raised red flags for Sam at the time, and she wished that she had paid more attention to it at the time then she did.

"I'm sorry, I don't know of anyone that would want to hurt Tucker." She told the officer finally, shaking her head. "What happened? Can you tell me anything more?"

"His parents returned home late in the evening to find the front door to their home open. Nothing was taken from the home, but they found a small pool of blood in their son's room." The officer reported. "Nobody saw anyone entering or exiting the house, so we're at a bit of a loss here. Don't worry though miss, we'll do everything in our power to find your friend and bring him back to safety."

"I'm sure you will." Sam said, trying her best to give the officer a small smile, to try and not let her rising panic show on her face. She didn't think it was a coincidence that Tucker vanished while he was trying to decode Spectra's files- but what on earth would a school therapist be doing kidnapping people? Was there something going on here that she didn't know about? Now that she thought about it though, she did find Ember's comment that she shouldn't bring up Spectra around Phantom a little odd- why on Earth would Amity Park's most infamous ghost have anything to do with your run of the mill therapist?

All she knew was that something didn't fit, and that she didn't like this one bit.

Sam was going to get to the bottom of this, one way or another- she had already more or less lost Danny, there was no way that she was going to lose Tucker as well. She didn't want to be all alone, as much as she might tend to cultivate a loner image, that wasn't something that she wanted. Her heart clenched a little when the officer described that there was blood on the scene, and she found herself praying that Tucker would be alright.

Whatever was going on here though, she had the strangest feeling that both Danny and Phantom were in the dead center of it, although she didn't quite know why. She would find out though, and she would see to it that Tucker would be saved, and just hoped that the police would be able to do a good job tracking her friend down. Somehow, though, she kind of doubted it- she got the vaguest feeling that perhaps the person who took him wasn't a _person _at all.

"We'll be sure to let you know if anything else turns up." The officer assured her, giving Sam's shoulder a tight squeeze, before she nodded to her partner that they were wrapping up here. Sam barely listened as the police officer spoke with her parents, her mind elsewhere once more, wondering what she was going to do about this, wondering why she had gotten Tucker into this mess in the first place. If they had never started to look for Danny again, then this would have never happened, and Tucker would be safe and sound.

But that would have meant abandoning Danny to his fate, whatever that fate might now be. And after learning that her friend was hearing and seeing things that weren't there- visions of his sister, Phantom had said, she didn't think that this was something that she would be able to allow to happen. She was much, much too worried about what would happen to Danny if she allowed this to happen.

That didn't sit right with her.

She didn't want to abandon either of them, not Danny, and not Tucker. They were both important to her, and both irreplaceable- but for the moment, she thought, she should probably concentrate on Tucker, who she was smart enough to realize was probably in immediate danger. She wasn't sure what she was going to do, but she had a gut feeling about what her eventual plan would be already- and she already knew that she wouldn't like it when it came into fruition.

Judging from Ember's comment earlier, it seemed as if Phantom and his ghostly friends knew something about Spectra, something that Sam _didn't _know. And she would have to be a fool not to think that she wasn't involved in this somehow- after all, Tucker had been looking into decoding her files on Danny. Thus, she knew that she had to seek them out again, and she knew that she would have to make them talk. If Phantom was still enough of a hero to want to combat people dealing bad drugs, then surely he would still be enough of a hero to help her find Tucker.

Somehow she sort of imagined that he actually wouldn't hesitate to do so, and she almost didn't understand why. Perhaps, it was as she had decided earlier, that Phantom was not as bad as his reputation let on, nor was he as much of a monster as Mr. Fenton would have her otherwise believe. In all truth Phantom seemed to be... rather complicated. She couldn't quite explain it, really. He had several sides to him, less like a ghost and honestly more like a human.

Then again, she was no expert on ghosts. Perhaps all of them were like that, at least the more powerful ones. Somehow she didn't think asking Mr. Fenton about it would enlighten her on the subject any. He seemed to pretty much have his mind made up about ghosts, after all- and about Phantom. She didn't think he would be changing it anytime soon.

Sam watched as the police officer said her final farewells, getting into the car with her partner and driving off. "I'm... going to go up to my room." She said finally, not making eye contact with her parents. They would kill her if they learned what she was thinking about doing right now, about what she knew she would have to do in order to ask Phantom the questions now burning in her mind. He knew something about Spectra, of that she was certain- and she had a hunch that he knew something about Danny as well, things that he wasn't telling her. And she was going to find out, one way or another.

But she had a strong hunch that this would involve her returning to the Underground. She didn't know anywhere else she could go to track them down, to be honest, and if she was going to go, she was going to have to leave soon. These thoughts were running through her mind as she ascended the stairs to her room, determination growing in her as she did. It was a dangerous place, she knew that much, with dangerous people- but she needed to go, she needed to ask these questions.

Why _hadn't_ she suspected something strange about Spectra earlier? Perhaps she had just assumed it was too out there. Sure, she had thought it was a bit odd that her files on Danny were in code, but it hadn't really registered with her that this might mean something more. And now that she thought about it, it really didn't seem like going to sessions with her helped Danny at all... and when she put that together with the coded files, she realized that there actually might be a bit more at play here with Casper High School's otherwise unassuming student counselor than she had first suspected.

She caught her parents beginning a worried, whispered discussion with each other, before Sam closed the door to her room behind her. Every muscle in her body was itching to go, she wanted to get out of this place and go pursue the only lead she had- otherwise than outright confronting Spectra, that is. Something told Sam that this would be an even more foolish thing to do than seeking Phantom out at the Underground. She grabbed her bag that she had left lying on her bed that morning, pulling out the tazer that kept hidden in a false bottom of her dresser drawer. Her mother didn't approve of such things, but Sam had no interest in ever ending up as a defenseless victim. She was of course, more than confident in her ability to lay into the average, run of the mill crook, but it never helped to have a little bit of an extra edge when it came to that.

After a moment's thought, she also took out the ectopistol Mr. Fenton had given her, shoving it inside of her bag as well. After all, she didn't know how Phantom was going to take to her asking about Spectra, and she wanted to be prepared just in case. She might be willing to give the ghost boy the benefit of the doubt, but she wasn't exactly so naive as to trust him completely. That would be foolish of her, given his less than savory reputation- after all, she still remembered what he had done to Mr. Fenton that one time. It was better to be cautious than it was to be too trusting of someone with such potential to be so very dangerous.

Sam forced herself to wait then, although she could feel every minute ticking by as another minute that Tucker was in danger. When had he even been taken? She was sure the officer had said something, but she hadn't heard her, hadn't been focusing on the here and now. She didn't want to dwell on it too much, hoping that Tucker would be fine, that he was fine and alive right now. Finally, she heard her parents move on to their room, and she let out a breath, hurrying to lock her door, before she grabbed her shoulder bag, and climbed out her window, making a neat jump down to the ground.

Well, she hadn't scored so high in the Presidential Fitness Exam for no reason, after all. Sam Manson was not weak, much as her mother liked to think otherwise.

Taking one last glance back towards her house, she hurried off before her parents thought to look out their window. She paced herself, making sure to keep her eyes on the skyline, hoping that she might still spot Phantom out and about. But she had no such luck, and as she drew nearer to the Underground, she slowed her pace, and became more watchful of her surroundings. She did not, however, let her nerves show on her face, for that would attract unwanted attention. She needed to look as natural as possible, like she belonged, in spite of being a high school student.

When Sam came within sight of the club, which had a line outside of it still, she took in and let out a deep breath. Like hell she was going to wait in line, she thought, still feeling each minute ticking by as another minute wasted. Clutching her shoulder bag, before releasing her grip on it, bringing up every ounce of confidence she had in her, she approached the bouncer, the rather burly looking woman she had noticed the last time she was here, observing from one of the nearby rooftops.

Tucker would kill her, she thought grimly, if he knew that she had been back here not only twice, but three times now, even if one of those wasn't by her own volition.

Come to think of it, why _had _the Box Ghost even bothered with her? And why bring her to _Phantom_? That seemed odd, and she wasn't sure why it hadn't struck her before now, but she put the thought aside for the moment, needing her full concentration as the rather imposing woman turned to look at her.

"I need to speak with Phantom." She said, her voice clear and direct- and although the bouncer looked confused for a moment, as she got a better look at the girl's face, her expression seemed to betray a hint of realization- as if there wasn't something too strange about the girl before her asking for Phantom.

"Yeah well, you need to wait in line, sister!" A nearby man glowered at her, turning his attention to Sam. Before she had approached the bouncer, he had been hassling her to let him in, so she guessed he wasn't in too good of a mood.

Sam ignored him, although she kept one eye on him still, wary that he might attempt to start something. "It's urgent. _Please_." She told the bouncer.

"This isn't exactly the place for you." The woman spoke up, still looking hesitant about letting her in. "Phantom's not here right now, either. Can I leave a message for him, if it's that important?"

"I need to speak with him as soon as possible. I can wait." Sam said resolutely. "I need to ask him for information. Please, it's possible that this could be the difference between one of my friends living and dying."

"Oh what a fucking drama queen." The unruly man rolled his eyes, glaring daggers at Sam. "Who the hell is this Phantom character anyways, and why is mentioning his name so important?" He asked, turning his full attention towards Sam now. Obviously, if he didn't know who Phantom was, he was from out of town, and had yet to learn that the rumors of Amity Park being extremely haunted were very, very true. "Girly, you can take your over dramatic stories and wait in the line like the rest of us. Here, let me help you with that." He said, reaching out a hand towards her.

Three things happened all at once then. First, Sam thrust her hand in her bag, grabbing her tazer, ready and willing to shock the living daylights out of this asshole. Secondly, the bouncer reached out one of her burly hands, ready to grab the man by the collar and no doubt hurl him halfway across the street, judging from the size of her muscles. But it was perhaps the third thing that happened that caused the two women to freeze in their tracks, because before they knew it, the man was on the ground, his face being ground into the pavement by a rather heavy steel toed boot.

Sam dropped her tazer, the device clattering to the ground, her breath catching in her throat. In the span of an instant, Danny had emerged from the crowd and had shoved the man to the ground, keeping him pinned there with one foot, despite the frustrated man's attempts at pushing himself up. When their eyes met, Sam found her mouth working silently, unable to produce sound for at least a few moments, before she got her bearings again.

She had heard that Danny had learned a thing or two about fighting, but seeing it first hand was something else entirely. For a moment she didn't even recognize her friend, the expression on his face being far too alien. But after a moment, when he turned his good eye towards her, his expression softened, and she found who he was clicking. It was a bit silly, really, she had seen him, however briefly, just a few days ago, so it wasn't like she didn't know what he looked like.

Still, she didn't like the changes that she saw. Last time she had simply been so relieved to see that he was alive that she had entirely put it from her mind, and hadn't thought about it, but now she did. Rougher around the edges, to be sure, and there was a more aggressive, dominant air to him, and a more confident nature than she remembered Danny Fenton having when he was fourteen, the last time that she really remembered everything being okay between the three of them.

"Danny." She said slowly, unable to take her eyes off of him.

"Sam." Danny said shortly, reaching down and moving his foot off the head of the by now very furious man, handing him over towards the bounder. "Clara, take five and take care of this shitstain, would you?" He asked her, good eye flickering towards the bouncer who nodded her head, flinging the man over her shoulder like he weighed no more than a backpack.

"What exactly is it that you think you're doing here, Sam?" Danny asked, ducking underneath the rope and standing in front of her, pausing briefly to pick up her tazer, which she accepted. As their fingers brushed against each other, she noticed with a slight flinch that her friend's skin was cold to the touch. "I thought you were a little smarter than to be the sort of girl who spends her time hanging around places like these."

"I could say the same about you, Danny." Sam said slowly, returning the tazer back to the inside of her shoulder bag. "I was hoping that the rumors I heard about you hanging around here weren't true." She said shortly. "I didn't think you would become the kind of guy who would spend time around here myself- or time around ghosts." She said.

"People change." Danny said shortly, his expression rather cold. "You didn't come all this way to convince me to come back home with you, did you? I thought I already told you the last time we met that I wasn't interested in doing that. I don't have a life back there anymore, Sam, not one that I intend to return to. I don't fit in back there anymore- but I do belong here." He told her, tucking his hands inside the pockets of his flight jacket.

"No, that's not what I'm here for, at least not this time. Even though I still wish you would." She said, shaking her head. "Danny, Tucker's missing. Someone took him from his own house."

"What?" Danny asked, and for a moment, some of the old Danny that she knew shined through, genuine concern and worry surfacing on her face. "Sam, are you sure?" He asked, placing his hands on her shoulders, and she winced, wondering when he got such a strong grip. His nails were practically digging into her skin, though he seemed to quickly realize this, pulling his hands back, and containing his emotions once more, putting on the expressionless mask that had slipped for the moment.

But she had seen it, and it was enough to give her hope that as much as he might claim otherwise, the Danny that she knew- and had fallen in love with- wasn't gone.

"Yes." She nodded her head. "The police were at my house. His parents came home to find the front door to their house open, and a small puddle of blood in Tucker's room- and no Tucker." Sam told him. "I think he's in serious danger, Danny. And I think... I think I might have an idea as to why, although it might sound crazy." She frowned then, looking up at him, seeming to reconsider that. "Although maybe not so crazy to you." She said after a moment.

"Let's go inside." Danny said after a moment, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder, ducking the both of them underneath the rope. Nobody objected much as he escorted her inside the Underground, and for the first time, she caught a good look at the place. It looked very much like she pictured a club- there was music pumping at a needlessly loud volume, lights flashing wildly about the room. The bar and the dance floor alike were both packed, and where there were seating areas, they were crammed full of people, namely men trying to pick up ladies.

The one thing that did stand out was that here and there, she noticed that some of the people, were in fact, not people, but rather ghosts. Nobody much seemed to pay them any mind, and they seemed to be interacting with the human patrons as if this somehow wasn't a very big deal. She didn't have too much time to look around, however, as Danny was leading her up the stairs to one of the private rooms before she knew it. She was going to ask how he had managed to obtain one, but given that he seemed to be buddy buddy with Phantom, who more or less seemed to be the king of this place, she figured she already knew the answer to that.

In all honesty, she had so many questions that she wanted to ask him, but there was no time for that right now- Tucker's situation currently took precedence.

And yet, despite herself, she couldn't help but feel a vast sea of relief to see that Danny was very much alive and seemingly well- he seemed to be eating properly, at least, although she didn't like the looks of the bags underneath his good eye. Again, she was struck by the fact that Phantom also concealed one of his eyes behind a bandage, but had to remind herself that Phantom's hid his left, while Danny's hid his right.

But then she also reminded herself that their voices sounded exactly alike, barring Phantom's echo effect. She was starting to suspect that these two might be more deeply connected than she had at first thought.

Danny opened the door to the private room, leading Sam into the very same room she had just been in not long before. The startled face of the ghost that she knew called herself Kitty greeted her, and she looked between Danny and Sam with mild confusion. "What's she doing here?" She finally asked, floating out of her sitting position. "I thought you didn't want to bring the girl to a place like this."

"She brought herself." Danny said shortly, and Sam couldn't help but find it incredibly disconcerting to see Danny casually chat with a ghost. "Scram, Kitty, I need to talk to Sam in private. Tell that to Johnny and Ember too." He instructed the ghost girl, who frowned, but slowly nodded her head. In the back of her mind, Sam wondered why Danny hadn't included Phantom on the list of people to be told to keep out.

"Is Phantom here?" Sam found herself asking, and for a moment, a confused expression crossed Danny's face, before he shook his head.

"He's not always around." Danny told her. "Sometimes he goes off to do other things. Couldn't tell you where he is though." He said, taking a seat on one of the couches, putting his feet up and motioning that she should take the other one. "Besides I'm pretty sure Phantom wouldn't give two shits about Tucker."

Somehow Sam knew that as a lie, but she took a seat anyways, watching as Kitty lingered for a moment before she phased through the door. She turned her attention back towards Danny then, looking him square in the face. "You know that I've been looking for you, I suspect. Word has probably passed down to you from Phantom. But I'll get straight to the point, because like I said, that's not why I'm here. I'm here because Tucker is missing."

"And you thought I could help you find him." Danny finished for her, and she seemed to have catch his interest. There was still concern evident in his good eye, now that she looked for it, a slight frown on his otherwise expressionless face. "Why? Shouldn't you just let the police do their job?"

"Actually, I was hoping that I could speak with Phantom." Sam told him after a moment, and again noted the look of surprise on Danny's face. "Look, I'll just cut to the chase here, because every minute that passes by could mean that Tucker is in danger. Tucker was helping me look for you Danny, and in doing so, he thought to look into the files that our student therapist kept on you while she was treating you." She noticed that Danny visibly paled as she brought up Spectra, taking his feet off the table. "We found them, but they were in some sort of weird code, so we couldn't understand them. Tucker was supposed to be working on decoding them." She said.

"_Spectra_." Danny said shortly, hanging his head, shaking it a little. "You two idiots were mucking around with Penelope Spectra."

"Idiots... Danny, that's hardly called for." Sam's eyes narrowed. "I mean, sure I'm immensely suspicious of her now that this has happened, but we had no reason to think there was anything all that strange about her _before_."

"Even though she kept her records on me in code?" Danny asked, looking up at her, quirking a brow. "Spectra's bad news, Sam, bad, bad news. Ask any of the ghosts around here, they can tell you that much. She's not who she appears to be, and that's part of the reason why it seems like nobody who actually goes to her is actually getting any help- because they're _not_. Me included, by the way, great idea you and Tuck had, trying to force me to attend sessions with her."

Sam paused, looking away from him then. "I'm sorry. If I had known then that she wouldn't even try to help you, I would have tried something else. I just wanted to see you happy again, Danny, that was all. Me and Tucker both felt that way. Ever since the accident with your mother and Jazz you were just never the same anymore." She told him, glancing back at him. "I just wanted to see you smile again, that's all."

Danny sighed, giving her the smallest hint of a smile, much to her surprise. "No, I know that much. You were trying for my sake, and I do appreciate that." He said after a moment, then shook his head. "But it's not just that Spectra doesn't try to help people. She wants to make them _worse_, Sam. Spectra feeds on misery, it allows her to stay young."

Sam blinked, not quite prepared for what she had just heard. "Come again?" She asked. "I don't think I heard you quite right the first time, Danny. Did you say Spectra feeds on misery? Like... some kind of emotional vampire?" She asked, her eyebrows knitting together.

"Try ghost." Danny told her, shaking his head. "I don't know what she's doing to look so human, but Spectra's a ghost, Sam. And what's more is that she's an emotion eater, and she uses misery to fuel her human form, to keep it young and working. Well," he paused, a wry grin on his face. "Not really a human form, per say. I'm not sure what she is, but I suspect that the body that she has now was robbed from someone else. Think of overshadowing, except that she's apparently devoured whoever else that body of hers used to belong to."

"I don't understand though. What would a ghost being doing working at a public high school?" Sam said, still looking baffled at this turn of events. Oh sure, she expected that there was something going on behind the scenes with Spectra- but a ghost? That she hadn't seen coming, and yet she felt no reason to doubt Danny. Of course, she slowly realized that she had forced her friend into having therapy sessions with this woman, and that made her gut churn. How could she have done such a thing? She had thought she was doing something to _help _Danny, but it was starting to look like the only thing Sam had done was make Danny even _worse_.

No wonder, then, that he didn't want to take her hand when she was trying to keep him from drowning. He didn't trust her anymore.

She didn't blame him.

Danny just rolled his eyes at her question, shaking his head. "Is there any better place to discreetly gather a wealth of misery all at once? To her, Casper High School is a paradise."

"If Phantom knows all this, why hasn't he done something about her?" Sam asked, clenching her fists. If Phantom had done something sooner, then Tucker would be safe at home right now, and not who knows where, his life possibly in danger. She was starting to reconsider her earlier changing opinion of him. To know that there was such a dangerous ghost around, and yet to choose not to do anything about it? How could he!

"He can't." Danny said shortly, shaking his head. "Phantom can't to near her. Johnny, Kitty and Ember can't do anything against her either, they're not strong enough. Our hands are tied, Sam."

"So you're saying that you'll do nothing?" Sam asked, getting to her feet. "Danny, she probably has Tucker right now! Who knows what she's planning on doing with him!? We need to do something, and Phantom is kind of one of the strongest ghosts in Amity Park! What do you even meant that he can't go near her!?"

"Exactly what I just said!" Danny shouted, his voice sharp. The anger in it made Sam flinch, not thinking that the meek boy she remembered could ever speak in such a tone. "Phantom can't go near her, and neither can I. I'm sorry about Tucker Sam, but there's not much we can do to help you. And you shouldn't be involving yourself with her either, in fact, you're lucky that she hasn't tried something on you yet. Just... leave it alone Sam, drop the whole thing and forget any of this ever happened. You'll be safe then."

"And what about Tucker!?" Sam shouted, her violet eyes going wide with horror. "Are you just suggesting that I _abandon _him? He's my friend, Danny, my best friend in the world! And I kind of thought he was yours too!" She stared at him, unable to comprehend what she had just heard, not wanting to comprehend it. "Danny, I can't abandon Tucker! I care about him, we've been together since we were kids. If there's something I can do to save him, then I'm going to do it!"

"But there's _nothing _you can do!" Danny shouted back, getting to his feet. He had really gotten quite a bit taller than her, Sam noticed, and he was using it all to tower over her, being far more imposing than he had any right to be. "Sam, Spectra's not someone you can just casually fool around with! She's dangerous. A ghost like her was already someone powerful when they were living, maybe a witch or something! She's not someone just anyone can hope to beat. And I'm _telling _you Phantom can't do anything about her. I don't want to abandon Tucker either! But I don't want to see you put yourself in danger!"

"Well I can't just sit idly by and do _nothing _while Tucker's in danger!" Sam screamed back, too angry at him to take the fact that he apparently still cared about her enough to be concerned about her safety to heart. "If you won't help me deal with Spectra, then I'll find someone who will! I'm sure your father would be more than happy to help me!"

"Leave him out of this!" Danny hissed, eyes narrowing. For a moment, they seemed to flash, almost changing color, but in the heat of her anger, she didn't even notice. "Spectra already cost me mom and Jazz, I don't want to lose anyone else to her!"

"...what?" Sam blinked slowly, her anger suddenly vanishing, stepping back. "Danny did you just... you mean the accident, right? You're saying that the one responsible was _Spectra_?"

It really _wasn't_ Phantom?

Danny swore underneath his breath then, that wasn't something that he had wanted to say at all! "It's not any of your business." He said shortly, looking away from her. "There's no way I can prove that anyways."

"And we sent you to her." Sam said, visibly paling and starting to shake, her violet eyes going wide. "We sent you to Spectra. We sent you to the person- the ghost- who killed your family, oh my God." She said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Danny, I'm so sorry, I had no idea, I had no idea about any of this." She said, suddenly finding herself in the grip of overwhelming emotion, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew this wasn't natural, as if something was forcing these feelings out of her.

"Sam, no." Danny said quickly, his voice stern, something that Sam couldn't quite make out flashing through his eyes. He placed his hands on her shoulders, steadying her somewhat. "It's okay, calm down. You didn't know." He told her. "Listen, I know what I'm saying might sound cruel to you, but I just want you to be safe. I don't want to sit around and do nothing while Tucker's in danger either, and for sure I don't want to give anyone else over to Spectra. I can't go into details about anything with you, and I'm sorry for that, but I'll do what I can to help him. I'll talk to Phantom." He told her, although there was a strange note to his voice when he said that. "It'll be okay, Sam."

Slowly, Sam steadied herself, the grip that the sudden wave of despair held on her vanishing as if it was never was there. In a better state of mind, she would have found this odd, and would likely realize this much later, only able to give Danny a bitter laugh now. "If you care about us so much still Danny, then why did you leave us all? Why are you here, hanging out with _ghosts_, with Phantom of all ghosts? You _know _how your father feels about Phantom and about ghosts. Why won't you just come home?"

"I can't tell you that." Danny said after a moment, dropping his hands from her shoulders. "There are just some things I can't answer, Sam. I'm not coming home." He shook his head. "Not now, not ever. I'm sorry. I don't _belong _there anymore." He told her simply, taking a step back, shoving his hands inside his pockets.

"Why not?" Sam asked, her eyes pleading.

"I can't tell you that either." Danny shook his head. "I can't promise you anything, but I will promise that I'll at least tell the others about this, and we'll do what we can. Phantom... Phantom will come visit you later and tell you anything else we can help you with. You're going to have to be content with that." He said.

"I will _never _be content with that." Sam told him, locking eyes with him. "I don't want to give up on you Danny. You're my friend, my best friend, just like Tucker." She told him. "I don't want to lose either of you."

"You'll have to settle for just trying to save Tucker." Danny told her, and there was something in his tone that told her he believed that he was already beyond saving. "I won't stop you form talking to my father, but you need to understand that you'll be putting yourself in danger. I don't know what Spectra's planning by taking him, but with Spectra, it's almost never anything good."

"And what about you?" Sam asked. "What should I tell your father about you?"

Danny paused then, looking away, shrugging his shoulders. "You can tell him I'm alive."

Mostly.

* * *

Sam had found herself being escorted out of the Underground shortly after that- Danny had only promised to send Phantom her way with any other information, and that was all. She was more than a little surprised at the escort she got- it came to her in the form of a glowing green puppy after all, and she had laughed when Danny told her that Cujo would see to it that nobody bothered her until she was to someplace safe. She had stopped laughing, however, when for lack of a better term, the dog had hulked out, turning into a massive dog twice her size.

She had felt safe at least, and Cujo had stuck by her side well until she had reached safer neighborhoods. After that, the large ghost dog gave her a rather slobbery kiss, leaving Sam grumbling as it returned to puppy size and had run back off, most likely to return to Danny's side. She had wiped it off as best she could, and then began to make her way towards Fenton Works.

With her cell phone smashed to pieces, she had no way of even knowing what time it was- but she suspected that it was no decent hour at all. But she didn't want to wait until the next morning to talk to Mr. Fenton, this was urgent! She moved at a brisk pace, speeding up a little when she spotted the sign for Fenton Works. The building looked a little shabbier than she remembered it, but being the only person living there now must have taken it's toll on Danny's father.

Sam wondered if he ever got lonely, and perhaps once all this tided over, she considered suggesting getting a puppy to him. She had lost a best friend when Danny had vanished, but she couldn't even imagine how his father was feeling. His wife and daughter were both dead, and his son, his only living family member, was so distant from him that he might as well have been dead. She knew that Jack Fenton was a man that loved and cared deeply for his family, and she knew that the loss of his wife and daughter had been a huge shock for him- there was nothing he could have done to protect them, in the end, and for a man who was so determined as he to keep his family safe, it must have been a huge blow to him.

And then when Danny decided to leave on his own, it must have been just the icing on the cake. She worried about him, sometimes, he, like his son, never seemed the same anymore- but at the very least, she could understand what was wrong with Jack.

She felt as if she didn't understand anything at all about Danny. What did he mean he didn't belong here anymore? Of course he did, did he miss the part where everyone wanted him back? That they were all searching for him, spending all this time to try and find him and bring him home? Of course he belonged with them- why would he _ever _belong with ghosts more?

For the moment, at least, she tried to put it from her mind. It would be enough to tell Mr. Fenton that Danny was alive and apparently well, and she knocked on the door, before ringing the doorbell. It vaguely occurred to her that he might be fast asleep at the moment, and that she wouldn't be able to wake him up, in which case, she really would have to wait after all.

However, in the end, the door to Fenton Works opened, and a tired looking Jack Fenton looked down at her. "Sam?" He asked, yawning. "I got up for a glass of water and heard you knocking on the door. What are you doing out this late? Would you like to come inside?"

"Thanks." Sam said, giving him a small smile, taking him up on his offer. "It is pretty chilly outside." She remarked.

"I'd offer you a glass of warm milk, but you're a vegetarian, aren't you?" Jack asked, closing the door behind her. When Sam nodded her head, he let out a small chuckle. "Yeah, I thought so. What brings you out this late at night, Sam?" He asked her, taking a careful look at her expression. He might have a reputation for being oblivious, but even he couldn't miss the worry that was clear on her face. "Did something happen?" He asked.

Sam took a deep breath, letting it out as she nodded her head. "Mr. Fenton, I think Tucker was kidnapped. And I think it was by a ghost."

Jack gave her a long look, before he looked down towards the basement lab, placing a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Why don't you come to the lab and give me all the details, Sam. I'll see to it that Tucker is brought back to you safe and sound." He told her, giving her a small smile.

He had already lost his wife and daughter to a ghost, to that accursed Phantom, so he didn't plan on seeing one of his son's best friends lost to them either. He wasn't sure what he had done so wrong that it caused Danny to drift away from him, to leave him alone, but he was sure that his son would never want him to abandon one of his friends when they were in need. His son, after all, was a very good kid, Jack knew that very well- even if he had been hearing some rather unsavory rumors about him as of late.

But there was no way that his son, the son of two ghost hunters, would ever spend time hanging around ghosts, and certainly wouldn't be _friends _with them. Least of all not with Phantom, the monster that had robbed him of his mother and older sister in the first place. Jack didn't believe a word of it, and didn't know who was responsible for starting such a vicious rumor in the first place, but he knew the moment that he found out, he would be having some words with them.

Danny was a good kid, after all, and good kids did not hang out with _monsters_.


End file.
